Home Archived My best lesson - Remove shades of grey from colour knowledge Back My best lesson - Remove shades of grey from colour knowledge 13th February 2015, 12:00am Gavin Rayner Share My best lesson - Remove shades of grey from colour knowledge https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/my-best-lesson-remove-shades-grey-colour-knowledge Copy Link Starting a lesson on refraction by showing the video for the song Roy G Biv by They Might Be Giants often takes students by surprise. But they soon see my reasoning when they realise the lyrics are all about the colour spectrum. I sometimes sing along, and occasionally the students join in too.With this and some introductory questions concluded, it’s time to get the equipment out. The pupils need a triangular prism, a ray box and a comb. Turn the lights off and black out the windows, then get the class to project a rainbow on to a screen. The students are always impressed by how the white light turns into all the colours of the spectrum.Next, ask pupils to make a colour wheel by colouring a sectioned circle red, green and blue. Get them to carefully attach the wheel to a 9V motor and ask them what they will see when it spins. They will probably have got the general idea by now, but temper their enthusiasm by explaining that the colours they have chosen are not likely to be pure so the result may not be a pure white (it always comes out grey).That’s all the essential curriculum learning taken care of, so next I like to blow my students’ minds. Many children will never have seen a Magic Eye picture - you can even get Gifs now in which a 3D image appears to move. Provide some Magic Eye pictures and watch how the pupils delve into the colour spectrum with real enthusiasm.Finally, ask the pupils to recreate Isaac Newton’s famous experiment where he recombined the spectrum from a prism, using a second prism to make white light once more - proving that the prism did not add the colour.Gavin Rayner teaches at Saint Nicholas School in Old Harlow, EssexDownload the plan for this lessonTell us about your best lessonEmail jon.severs@tesglobal.com Want to keep reading for free? Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters. Register Log in Keep reading for just £1 per month You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get: Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content Exclusive subscriber-only stories Award-winning email newsletters Subscribe now Nothing found Recent Most read Most shared Is teaching suffering an identity crisis? Analysis 23 September 2024 Everyone’s talking about oracy, but can we cut through the noise? Teaching & Learning 23 September 2024 VAT on school fees will lead to teacher job cuts, warns SCIS News 23 September 2024 Schools must not use Ofsted logos for this year’s judgements News 17 September 2024 Teacher pay scales 2024-25: what will your salary look like? Analysis 29 July 2024 How to fix the primary maths curriculum Teaching & Learning 18 September 2024 DfE urged to review curriculum panel over Oak links News 18 September 2024 Call for Ofsted ‘transparency’ over board minutes News 17 September 2024 How to fix the primary maths curriculum Teaching & Learning 18 September 2024