Colourful Light

We started term 3 studying about Light. We learned that sunlight looks white, but is really a mixture of colours. When sunlight shines through drops of water, it splits up and you can see all the different colours of a rainbow. Bradley found this experiment for us to try to prove it. Have a go at doing it at home.

You will need:
a shallow dish of water, a small mirror and a piece of paper.

 This is what you do:
1. Put the dish in front of a sunny window and put the small mirror into it so that the mirror faces the sun. Do not look into the mirror!
2. Hold the piece of paper above the dish and move the mirror so that the light reflected off the mirror shines onto the paper.
What colours do you see on the paper?
Does it look like a rainbow in the sky?