This week’s Inspire activity will give you some tips and ideas on how to make your own rainbow! This is a fun way to celebrate diversity and inclusivity!
DIY Rainbow ideas:
A) Magic Paper Towel Art
You will need:
● Marker (permanent and washable)
● Paper towels
● Water in a small tray
● Scissors
Steps:
1) Get your supplies ready. You will need to prepare your paper towels. Do this by taking a square of paper towel and folding it in half. Then cut the paper towel so you end up with a small square with another small square behind it.
2) Take a permanent marker and draw a rainbow on the top layer of the folded paper towel.
3) When you lift up the top layer of the paper towel you will see that the pen has gone through the paper towel onto the layer below. Now it is time to colour in this outline or
add to your image. Colour the image with washable markers so the colour bleeds when it is put into water.
4) Now it’s time for the magical part of this paper towel activity. Make sure everyone is watching as this happens fast! Place the paper towel into the water. As the water soaks through the two layers of the paper towel the colours from the bottom layer will appear through the top layer of the paper towel making it look as if the colours or images have appeared by magic.
B) Make your own rainbow at home experiment
You will need:
● A clear plain glass and some water on it
● A piece of white paper
● And a sunny day
Steps:
1) Find a bright sunny spot in your house (the brighter the better, next to a window can work best)
2) Put the paper down flat in the sunlight.
3) Fill your glass with water until it’s a little over half full.
4) Carefully set the glass of water down on the paper. Do you see your rainbow? If you don’t, gently pick up the glass and lift it straight up away from the paper until you see
a rainbow appear on the piece of paper. If it doesn’t work the first time you might need to put the glass down slowly and try again or carefully tip the glass just a little in the beam of sunlight.
C) Make your own rainbow rock
You will need:
● You can use acrylic paints, gouache, felt-tip pens, oil paints, or even watercolor. ● Some stones (needs to be not too small, can be collected from the beach or parks)
Steps
1) Collect some stones from parks or beaches, or purchase some a small set of “garden stones”.
2) Draw your rainbows on them.
3) Put some wax paper onto a baking sheet, and place your stones on top to dry. Allow them dry overnight (this step is not essential)
4) Scatter them around to spread kindness and bring a smile to people’s faces!
D) To think
● Write a list of aspects of your personality that you are proud of. Put that list somewhere you can see regularly so you remember that we should be able to feel proud of who we are.
● What would you do if you were First Minister to push for social change? Is there anything you can do during your day that would help, for example talking to a friend about things that are unfair?
Did you know that…
● LGBTQ+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer. The ‘+’ represents people who are similar to LGBTQ people but use different words to describe themselves.
● The rainbow flag is a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride.
● We celebrate LGBTQ+ history because it is important to acknowledge the people who have fought for us to be able to be ourselves (shows how far we have come in accepting differences).
● People who are transgender are people whose gender (for example being a boy, girl or neither) is different to the what people thought it was when they were born. Transgender people might be boys/men, girls/women, neither or a mixture of both. Having a gender which is neither male or female is called being non-binary.
● Lesbian, gay and bisexual are all words which describe who a person might want to have relationships with. Lesbian refers to women who want to have relationships with women. Gay can be used as a term for everyone who wants to have relationships with people of the same gender as them, as well as specifically referring to men who want to have relationships with other men. Bisexual refers to people who are attracted to people or more than one gender, for example, men and women, or women and non-binary people.
● People can like people of all genders, some people have a mum and a dad, whilst others may have two mothers, two fathers or even two parents who identify as neither male or female.
● The Stonewall riots set the ground for the development of the gay rights movement allowing gay individuals to live freely.
● The Stonewall riots took place during the summer of 1969, at this time it was illegal in many places to be openly gay.
● Sylvia Rivera was a trangender activist that co-founded (with Marsha P. Johnson) the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) – a group that offered support and housing to young LGBTQ+ individuals.
● Marsha P. Johnson was a groundbreaking transgender activist who played an important role in the stonewall riots and helpedco-found STAR.
● Mathematician Alan Turning played an important role in ending World War Two. As a gay man he was punished at the time, but is now acknowledged as a great and important person in history. He was even voted the BBC’s Greatest Person Of The 20th Century last year.
● Since 1990, 40 countries have decriminalised homosexuality.
We’d love to see what you’re up to and the outcome of the different activities but please do this safely! If you want to, send a picture (preferably with no faces) of what you’ve done via our email inspire@discoverysvs.org but please consult your parent/carer about this before sending us anything. If you are worried about anything you see / experience online, please tell a parent / carer about it and consult the following link www.thinkuknow.co.uk