Class 5 English Chapter 3: The Rainbow

After the rain

The shower has just stopped. Ira runs out to the wet terrace. The sun is low behind her. In front of her, a huge arch of colour hangs over the trees. It looks like a coloured bridge. She wants to walk on it. Where would it take her? A poet once had the very same thought.

A poem about looking

This poem is by Christina Rossetti. She wrote it long ago, in England. The poem does not tell a story. It simply looks at the world and compares things. Two stanzas, two comparisons. In both of them, nature is the winner.

Stanza one: things that sail

The first stanza begins on the water. Boats move along the rivers. Bigger ships move across the seas. Both of them sail. Then the poet looks up. High above, clouds are sailing too.

But the clouds win

The poet says the clouds are far prettier than the boats and ships. That is a quiet surprise. Boats and ships are built by people. Clouds are made by nature, and nobody steers them. The poet lets nature win the first round.

Stanza two: bridges

The second stanza begins with bridges. People build bridges over rivers. The poet agrees that they are pretty. Then she lifts our eyes again. There is another bridge, and nobody built it.

The bow in the sky

The rainbow is that other bridge. The poet calls it "the bow that bridges heaven" (Christina Rossetti, The Rainbow). It rises above the trees. It seems to lay a road from the earth up to the sky. No river bridge can do that.

What does bow mean here?

A bow can mean many things. It can be a ribbon, or a weapon for arrows. Here it means an arch, a curved shape. The rainbow is an arch of colour. That is why the poem is called The Rainbow.

Two uses of bridges

Look closely at the word bridges. In the first line it is a naming word: bridges over rivers. In the third line it is a doing word: the bow bridges the sky. The same word can do two jobs.

The word these

Each stanza ends with the word these. In the first stanza, these means the boats and the ships. In the second stanza, these means the bridges on the rivers. The word points back to what was named just before.

Sounds that repeat

Listen to the line ends: seas, these, please, trees. They all rhyme. The poet also repeats whole ideas. The phrase about being prettier comes back at the end of both stanzas. Repeating an idea makes it stick.

True or false?

Test yourself with the poem. Ships sail on the seas, not on the rivers. Boats sail on the rivers, not on the seas. Bridges really are built over rivers. And a road from the earth to the sky is built by the rainbow.

Why nature wins

The poet is not against boats or bridges. She just wants us to look up. The things people make are useful and pretty. The things nature makes are free and enormous. Step outside after rain and judge for yourself.

Scenario:

Nita says the poem is only about pretty things in the sky. Kabir disagrees. He says the poem sets two pairs against each other. Boats sail on the river, but clouds sail higher. People build bridges over rivers, but the rainbow arches over the trees. Each time the made thing is the smaller one. Nita then asks how a rainbow is made at all. Their teacher takes the class outside with a garden hose. She stands with the sun behind her and sprays a fine mist. A small rainbow appears in the spray. The children see that sunlight and water drops are all it takes.

Analysis:

The poem compares what people build with what nature makes. The hose shows the second half of that comparison is not magic, only light and water.

Activity:

On a sunny morning, spray water into the air with your back to the sun. Draw what you see and write the colours in the order they appear.

Christina Rossetti wrote many short poems for children, and this is one of them.

A rainbow is really a full circle. From the ground we can see only the top arch.

The shape of the poem — Made by us, made by nature, nature wins — Each stanza names a human thing, then a natural thing, then says which is prettier.

Arjun's word game

Arjun and his sister play a word game on the bus. One of them says a word. The other must answer with a word that sounds like it. Sea, tea, key, three. The game is easy at first. Then it gets hard, and that is the fun. This topic is full of games like that.

Rhyme lives in the ear

Two words rhyme when their endings sound the same. Watch out for a trick. Sea and key look nothing alike on paper. They still rhyme perfectly. Listen first, then look. Your ear is the judge here.

Rhyme families from the poem

Try these families. Ship gives chip, trip, dip and lip. Tree gives free, bee, key and me. Rain gives train, plain, chain and main. Sun gives run, fun, bun and one. Say each family aloud and clap the beat.

A word with two sounds

The word bow is a puzzle. In this poem it rhymes with go and low. In another sentence it rhymes with cow, when you bow to greet someone. Same letters, two sounds and two meanings. The sentence around the word tells you which one to use.

Scrambled letters

Here is a puzzle from the lesson. Mix up the letters of a word from the poem and see who can rebuild it. Sial gives sail. Vierr gives river. Oduscl gives clouds. Eoptvros gives overtops. Say the sounds slowly and the word appears.

Friend words

A word can take a friend word and make a brand new word. Rain and bow join to make rainbow. Tea and cup join to make teacup. Words like these are called compound words. You can still hear both parts inside them.

Building more friend words

Try wrist and watch: wristwatch. Try arm and chair: armchair. Try earth and worm: earthworm. Try note and book: notebook. Try tooth and brush: toothbrush. Each one is written as a single word, with no space.

One word, two jobs

Some words can be a naming word or a doing word. Look at bridge. A bridge over a river is a thing, so it is a noun. To bridge a stream with planks is an action, so it is a verb. Nothing about the spelling changes.

Ten words that do both

Here are ten of them: cut, bat, picture, cry, filter, dance, plant, paint, fly and face. My plant is on the sill. I plant a seed. The first plant is a noun. The second is a verb.

How to spot the job

Ask one question: is the word doing something? If yes, it is a verb. If it is a thing you can point at, it is a noun. Try the word paint. The paint is red, so it is a noun. I paint the wall, so it is a verb.

Opposites that start with S

The book asks for opposites that all begin with one letter. Large becomes small. Weak becomes strong. Fast becomes slow. Rough becomes smooth. Dull becomes shiny. One letter, many answers.

The rest of the S list

Here are the others. Curved becomes straight. Finish becomes start. Addition becomes subtraction. Complicated becomes simple. Mild becomes spicy. Blunt becomes sharp. Now pick a new letter and build your own list.

Scenario:

Class 5 makes a word wall for the rainbow poem. Devi puts up pairs that rhyme, such as please and trees. Ali adds a column of opposites, such as over and under. Then a problem appears. Devi has written bridge under naming words. Ali has written the same word under action words. Both of them are right. You can walk over a bridge, and you can bridge a gap. The class hunts for more words that do two jobs. They find rain, water, colour and paint. All four are words about the world outside. By Friday the wall holds eleven of them.

Analysis:

A word is not fixed to one job. Rain, water and colour all name a thing and also name an action, and the wall makes that visible.

Activity:

Make a word wall with three columns: rhymes, opposites, and words that do two jobs. Add five words to each column in a week.

Title:

The word wheel

Safety:

Ask an adult to help if you need to cut the card with scissors.

What You Notice:

The rhyme slice is the easiest one, and the S opposites are the hardest. Saying the words aloud helps every time.

English has very few rhymes for orange, silver and month. Poets mostly avoid them.

Rainbow, sunflower and toothbrush all began as two separate words long ago.

Testing a rhyme — Ears first, eyes later — Say both words aloud and listen to the endings. Never decide from the spelling alone.

Noun or verb — Point at it or do it — If you can point at the thing, it is a noun. If somebody is doing it, it is a verb.

Devika's paint box

Devika opens her paint box. There are only six little cakes of colour inside. She wants to paint a rainbow, and a rainbow needs seven. Her brother laughs and hands her a brush. Mix them, he says. Two colours can make a third one. Devika tries it, and a new colour appears on her page.

Seven colours, one word

A rainbow always shows its colours in the same order. There is an easy word for that order: VIBGYOR. It stands for violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Violet lies on the inside of the arch. Red lies on the outside.

How a rainbow is born

Sunlight looks plain white to us. It is not plain at all. It is seven colours travelling together. When sunlight passes through a tiny rain drop, the drop splits it. Each colour bends by a slightly different amount. That is how the arch of colour appears.

Where to stand

You cannot see a rainbow just anywhere. Keep the sun behind your back. Look towards the falling rain in front of you. Early morning and late afternoon are the best times. The lower the sun, the higher the arch.

Mixing two colours

Now for the paint box. Red and blue together give purple. Yellow and blue give green. Red and yellow give orange. These three new colours are already in a rainbow. Mix a little at a time and stir well.

Lighter and darker

Two more mixes are worth knowing. Red with a little white gives pink. Red with a little black gives maroon. White makes a colour lighter. Black makes it darker. Add the second colour drop by drop.

All three together

What happens if you mix red, yellow and blue together? You get brown. It is a useful colour for tree trunks and soil. Colours in paint behave differently from colours in light. That is why a spinning disc of rainbow colours looks white.

Colours in the kitchen

Your kitchen is a colour box too. A dry chilli is deep red. Turmeric is yellow. Curry leaves are green. Peppercorns are almost black. Garlic is creamy white. Name each one in your own language as well.

A poem has a voice

Now try something with your voice. Take a short poem you know well. Read it once in a happy voice. Read it again in an angry voice. Read it a third time in a surprised voice. The words do not change, but the poem does.

How to change your voice

A happy voice is light and quick, and it ends high. An angry voice is low, hard and slower. A surprised voice jumps up on the important word. Your face helps too. Try it in front of a mirror.

Writing about a journey

The poem watches boats and ships travel. You have travelled too. Write a paragraph of about eighty words on one journey you took. Say when you went and where. Say who was with you.

Finishing your paragraph

Add what you liked and what you did not like. Add one food you tasted on the way. Add one thing you saw and will not forget. The journey is over, so use past tense words: went, saw, ate, liked.

Scenario:

Ahaan lives in Kochi, where the monsoon rain is heavy. One afternoon the rain stopped early and the sun came out. Ahaan saw a rainbow above the coconut trees and ran to tell his grandmother. She said the sky was showing off. His science teacher had said something different that week. Sunlight is made of many colours, and a rain drop can separate them. The next Sunday Ahaan tried it himself. He stood in the garden with his back to the sun and sprayed a fine mist from the hose. A small rainbow appeared in the spray. He called his whole family out to look.

Analysis:

A poem and a science lesson can describe the same thing. The poem gives us wonder, and the science gives us the reason. Both are true.

Activity:

On a sunny day, ask an adult for a spray bottle of water. Stand with the sun behind you and spray a fine mist. Note the colour you see at the top.

Isaac Newton gave the rainbow seven colours. He liked the number seven.

A disc painted in rainbow colours looks white when it spins very fast.

The order of the colours — VIBGYOR, from violet to red — Say the seven letters as one word. Violet sits inside the arch and red sits outside.

Making a colour lighter or darker — White lifts, black sinks — A drop of white makes pink from red. A drop of black makes maroon from red.