Rainbow Number Bonds

Maths seems to be getting the better of my eldest at the moment, he’s got so many different methods and ideas in his head that he’s struggling to work out when to use a method and how to apply to properly. Number bonds which will make things easier for him he seems to have forgotten completely so it was time to do some number bond revision with him. I’ve been looking at ways that he can use his creativity to work on some of the confusion and the Number Bond Rainbow is ideal – he can get creative as well as learn his number bonds to 10.

What You'll Find on This Page

Learning Objectives

To learn and/or review number bonds to 10

Check out these other number bond activities

Materials Needed for Rainbow Number Bonds

Oil Pastels (USA)

Blue Card

Black Marker

Creating Rainbow Number Bonds

Start off explaining that you are going to create a rainbow on the page making it large enough to fill the whole sheet of card. You will be missing out the indigo colour as it is very close to blue and violet and not needed for the purpose of the activity.

Draw a large red arc and then a smaller one inside and colour in repeat for orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.

Oil pastels are an interesting addition to your art supplies and wonderful for children to use – they aren’t chalky like normal pastels but they do blend really well – so when our colour set didn’t contain a violet we were able to discuss what colours make purple and to blend the pastels together.

Once the rainbow is complete start on the left-hand side and explain that you will be writing the numbers 0 – 5 on the left hand end of the rainbow colours starting with the red as 0 – and then on the violet you will be starting with the number that is 10 – 5 and working your way across from violet to red labelling them to 10.

The rainbow can now be used as a prompt when completing maths questions that need knowledge of number bonds to 10 to work out. We have put it up on the wall and can reference it when we sit and work together.