Learn with Emilia · Story 3
About “Emilia's Rainbow Picnic”
- Ages: 2-4
- Length: 6 min
- Season: Learn with Emilia, story 3
Emilia packs a picnic with one food for every color: a red strawberry, an orange orange, a yellow banana, green broccoli, blue blueberries and purple grapes. Then a sun-shower paints a real rainbow over her blanket.
Six colors, six foods and one picnic basket. Emilia packs one color at a time, and several times the narrator asks the viewer to name a color before revealing it. The foods are ones many toddlers already know, so they're easy to find again in your own kitchen. At the park she lines everything up in rainbow order, and Pip sneaks a grape when no one is looking. Then rain falls while the sun is still shining, and once it stops, a real rainbow stretches over the blanket in the very same order as her food, with red on top. A final color game mixes everything up for practice.
- colors
- fruits and vegetables
- rainbows
- picnics
This story is coming to YouTube soon. You can read it below and print its coloring page now.
What Emilia learns
- red
- orange
- yellow
- green
- blue
- purple
Tips for grown-ups
- Pause after each question, such as 'What color are blueberries?', and give your child time to answer before the narrator does.
- Enjoy the orange page. An orange orange is a fun way to show that one word can name both a color and a fruit.
- Build a rainbow snack plate with whatever you have, one food per color, and line it up in the story's order.
- The next time sun and rain come together, look for a rainbow and check whether red is on top, like in the story.
- Sort toys, socks or blocks into piles by color, using the six color words from the story.
Talk about it
After watching, ask:
- What red food did Emilia pack?
- What color are the grapes?
- What did Pip sneak?
- What came after the rain?
- Which color is on top of the rainbow?
- What is your favorite color?
Try this together
Go on a color hunt at home: call out one color at a time and find something that color to set on a blanket, until you have your own rainbow row from red to purple.
Free coloring page
Emilia's Rainbow Picnic: print it (US Letter or A4) or color it on screen.
Read the story
The sun was shining. The sky was so blue.
A picnic day! And a rainbow picnic, too!
One food for each color, all packed up with care,
in a big picnic basket, for Emilia and Pip to share!
First, something red: a strawberry, so sweet,
a red, juicy strawberry, a red little treat!
Then something orange, so round and so bright:
an orange orange! Now, that sounds just right!
Then something long, with a peel to unzip.
What color is a banana?
Yellow! A yellow banana! Zip, zip, zip!
Then something green: little broccoli trees,
green like the grass, and green like the leaves!
Then a bowl full of berries, just right for two.
What color are blueberries?
Blue! Blueberries are blue! She ate a few!
And last, some grapes, in a bunch on a vine.
What color are the grapes?
Purple! Purple grapes, all shiny and fine!
Off to the park, with her basket and Pip,
she skipped, and she hopped, with a hop and a skip!
She spread out her blanket, so soft and so wide,
and laid out her picnic, side by side.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple too:
a rainbow of food! Look what she can do!
And Pip? He nibbled one grape. Shh! Nobody saw!
Then he winked at you, with a grape in his paw!
Then pitter, pat, pitter! Some rain from the sky,
while the sun was still shining! Oh, my, oh, my!
Under her umbrella, she waited with Pip.
Drip, drop, drip... and the very last drip.
And then, in the sky, what a beautiful sight!
A rainbow! A real one, so big and so bright!
The very same colors as her picnic below!
Which color is on top?
Red! Then orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, in a row!
Then she ate her whole rainbow, from red down to blue,
and purple came last. Mmm! And Pip had some too!
Your turn! Let's play a color game!
What color is the strawberry?
Red!
What color is the banana?
Yellow!
What color is the broccoli?
Green!
What color are the grapes?
Purple!
What color are the blueberries?
Blue!
And what color is the orange?
Orange! Of course!
You know your colors! Hooray for you!
You know all your colors! So stand up and play!
It's time for a happy, happy learning day!
Then over to her backpack, for pin number three:
a rainbow! Click! As bright as can be!
Three pins on her backpack! Is she proud? Oh, yes!
Seven more to go! What's next? Can you guess?
Every day, there's something new to know,
and every time you learn, you grow, and grow!
Next time, Emilia learns big and little! Bye-bye!
Questions parents ask
Why does the rainbow have purple instead of indigo and violet?
To keep it simple for toddlers, the story sticks to six everyday color words: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
Is the broccoli from another Emilia story?
Yes. The same little broccoli trees star in Emilia Tries a New Food, a Big Firsts story about trying something new, if your child wants more.