Planting a rainbow by Louis Ehlert

Call me shallow, superficial or whatever other adjective that can be used to describe someone who judges a book by its cover... Well, one of the main reasons why I picked this book out from the library bookshelf was because of the colourful colours and pictures on the front of the book.  The title was also very appealing..

 Just look at the pictures! You can't fault me right... It's beautiful :-)

For this instance, my initial judgement did not fail me. It is a wonderfully crafted book which introduces a child to the different colours of the rainbow through the various types of flowers and plants that will be planted - "Every year Mom and I plant a rainbow"...

The book is more suited for 1-2 year olds as the words are big and few, the colours are attractive, and the book is sturdy enough to withstand a small kids excited hands when turning the pages. My 4-year old loved the factual part of the book though.. The one that introduces children to the names of the different types of flowers for the respective colours of the rainbow.  I had with all "good" intentions (for myself only though, cos I wanted to sleep early) wanted to just speed through the names of he flowers and hopefully skip some of them cos I thought that kids would not be interested in these details.  Now, which kid would want to learn about the names of the different flowers, right... right? Wrong!!! Time and again my son has proved me wrong and reminded me never to underestimates what a kid perceives as important and pays attention to. You'd be surprised!

So... tomorrow, hopefully we'll be planting our own rainbow, using coloured paper (for the petals), ice cream stick (for the stem) and an empty shoebox (as our pot)...

Hope to buy some seeds and soil also so the kids can get their lil hands dirty, and get them to draw their own plant poster with labels.  Did this before for the 7year old when she was smaller, now to repeat that science lesson for the 4 and 2 year old.

I think we shall go to the botanical gardens one these days... Perhaps go on a plant exploration :o)

It's fun being a mum!