Rainbow children

To look at how diversity is better than uniformity (SEAL theme 5: Good to be me).

by Ronni Lamont

Suitable for Key Stage 1

Aims

To look at how diversity is better than uniformity (SEAL theme 5: Good to be me).

Preparation and materials

• You need seven large sheets of paper, each painted a different colour of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). Give out the seven sheets of paper to seven children as they come into the assembly.
• Download the song ‘I can sing a rainbow’ (very old single by Cilla Black).

Assembly

1. Ask the seven children with sheets of paper to come to the front, standing in a random pattern.
   
   (If you can) Class by class, ask the children to stand in a line in front of their favourite colour. They have to choose just one colour.
   
   (If you can’t) Ask the children to put up their hands to vote for their favourite colour.
2. Are any of the children wearing their favourite colour today?
   
   Comment on the favourites, then get the children to sit back down again.
   
   Ask them for examples of clothes/bags, etc., that they have which reflect their favourite colour.
3. Now ask the children why you have picked the colours that they see. (They form the colours of the rainbow. Line up the children so their colours are in the rainbow order.)
   
   What would happen if we took out one of the colours? (We would miss this colour. The rainbow would not be as lovely to look at as it is, it would be incomplete.)
4. Does anyone know what colour you get if you mix all these colours together? (You get a dark blackish-brown.)
   
   The rainbow is caused when the bright white light of the sun goes through rain or mist. The light of the sun breaks up and you see it as different colours. Put all the coloured lights together again: what do you get?
   (All the colours together make white light, which for us is invisible – the light that we live in.)
5. In the Bible, we read that God made the light, and he also made the lights that we need to see by – the sun and the moon and the stars.
   
   The light from the sun and the moon is a mixture of all the colours that we see. (You might like to give children time to think about that, as it’s not obvious.)
   
   God made the light all these different colours, and he made each one of us different too. Otherwise we’d miss the parts that aren’t here. Boys and girls, short and tall, medium and not so medium, blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes, God made each one of us, and every one of us is different.
6. Wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same?

Time for reflection

(Play the music)

Let’s think about what we’re all like:
tall, not so tall;
good at sport, not so good at sport;
friendly, shy;
chatty, quiet.
Thank you, God, that I am who I am.
Amen.

Song/music

‘There are hundreds of sparrows’ (Come and Praise, 15)