Alma Thomas Radial Design Rainbows with Slideshow and Directions

First grade learned about the color spectrum and the colors of the rainbow by looking at the art of Alma Thomas. I started by sharing this little slideshow about the artist and her art. We discussed her color paintings and specifically what colors she used, and sometimes what colors she used them in. We started our own Alma Thomas inspired rainbow collage with construction paper. To mix it up a little bit, I told them they could start in the middle with one square, like it says on the directions... but it didn't have to be red. For whatever reason this made the place go bonkers. I said if they didn't feel comfortable mixing it up, they should use red, but if they were up to a challenge they could use a different color. It was a sneaky way to differentiate. Then on the board I wrote:

Roy G. Biv   and we talked about what each one of those initials meant.

Then I wrote:
Oyg B. Ivr
Ygb I. Vro
Gbi V. Roy
Biv R. Oyg
Ivr O. Ygb
Vro Y. Gbi

The pressure was on doing that in front of a bunch of 6 & 7 year olds and not making a mistake.  I did in fact make a mistake and a kid caught it.

The students just had to look at the rainbow order that they actually started with to complete the rest of their collage.  I had the strips of paper up front in traditional rainbow order as well to help them.

Here is the link to my artsonia gallery for this project. And here are some great ones!