The rainbow is a great symbol for Christians of God’s love and promise to us. It’s also the symbol of new beginnings, a key message of Christianity. This activity helps children to think about their own ability to share God’s love with others and to pray for those who don’t yet know that love. Plus, it’s pretty amazing to watch!
You will need: 6 clear cups; water; red, yellow, and blue food coloring; 6 sheets of paper towel.
Fill 3 of the cups half full with water and arrange them in a circle with the three unfilled cups in between. In the top cup of water, squeeze several drops of yellow food coloring. In the left cup of water, use blue food coloring. Use red food coloring in the remaining cup.
Fold the paper towel in half lengthways and then fold it over again.
Place the end of each piece of paper towel in neighboring cups of water, their ends alternatively in half-full and empty cups.
The water will start to climb the paper towel and pass into the empty cup, where it will mix with the water from the cup on the other side.
Your empty cups will now be filled with colored water: purple (from the blue and red cups), green (from the yellow and blue cups), and orange (from the yellow and red cups).
Talk about the story of the rainbow appearing after the flood, God’s love and promise and the new beginning it signaled.
In the water experiment, the paper towel helped the water to travel from one cup to another. We can be a bit like that by helping to spread the message about God’s love and promise to other people who might not have heard about it. How might we do that? How do people show love to you? How do you show love to others? How would you let others know about God’s love?
Pray: Ask the children to think about people they know who don’t know that God loves them. Set up the experiment again and get them to write the names of these people on an empty cup. Ask children to write their own names on one of the colored cups. As the water starts to “walk” between the cups, pray that God will help them to find ways of showing God’s love to the people they have chosen.
You will have made a rainbow!
This post first appeared at Flame: Creative Children’s Ministry.
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