How to Make a Liquid Rainbow

My sister brought her four kids for a visit at the end of August.  She also brought the book How to Make a Liquid Rainbow.

We had six kids from ages two to nine and this was the perfect activity to keep them busy for a while.  It was easy enough for the little ones to participate, but also interesting enough for the older ones.  I loved that the author included a scientific explanation of how the rainbow works.

I also liked that this experiment uses common household items.

The procedure is pretty simple.  It's mostly a matter of layering the liquids on top of each other.  We let the kids pour their own and the only layer I did was the olive oil.  Can you guess which layer didn't come out right??

We elected to use small baby food jars instead of one big jar so that everybody could have their own.  This meant we had to guess at measurements so our rainbows weren't as vibrant as they could have been, but everybody still liked it.

Steve Spangler does a similar seven layer density column.  His colors just aren't in the order of the rainbow.  Let me know if you try it or post a picture on our facebook page.  I'd love to see it!