The Rainbow Rule

Recently we were rockin' it rainbow style in reading!  What kid doesn't love rainbows right?  They seem to be magical, so magical in fact, they even make learning the two-vowel rule fun.  And let's face it, making phonics rules fun does require some magical powers.

We started with a rainbow book.  We talked about how the word rainbow in the title made a long a sound but didn't have a sneaky e like the long vowel words we have seen in the past - hmmmmm.  I explained that this was because there are two vowels together and when two vowels are walking the first one does the talking and since we discovered it in the word rainbow we'll call it the rainbow rule.  While we read we were on the lookout for more words that followed the *rainbow rule*.

After our story we made a list of some long vowel words that we thought might fit the rainbow rule.  We found out that some long vowel words follow patterns like -ay and -ight and some are oddballs like great and heart.  We wrote all the words that fit the rule on post-its and stuck them on our rainbow.  Now we can use our rainbow as a literacy station for sorting rainbow rule words.


To reinforce the rainbow rule we made rainbow chains.

(won't these look cute hooked together hanging from the ceiling?)

 We played Build-a-Rainbow.

Click the pic to download a copy.
To build your rainbow you can use colored beans, bingo markers, or, if you want to eat your rainbow, Fruit Loops!



Finally, we looked for the pot of gold under the rainbow!  This is that super easy game that my kiddos just love.  You can find the snowflake version that reviews CVC and CVCe patterns here.  For the rainbow version I made a full sheet for each card.  This way you can run the cards off on colored paper to get a rainbow colored set.

Hope this helps learning about Bossy R a little more magical...Cue Kermit singing while strumming his banjo...