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Jessi: Who doesn't love a little rain now and then? Rain showers make the world look fresh and clean, and they make puddles for us to jump in. Sometimes a rainy day can be extra special when we get to see our rainbow. But you don't need rain or even to be outside to see a rainbow. You can make your very own rainbow right in your house. All you need is a clear, plain glass, some water, a piece of white paper, and a sunny day.

So are you ready to make a rainbow? First find a bright sunny spot in your house, the brighter the better so next to window works best. Now put the paper down flat in the sunlight, then fill your glass with water until it's a little over half full. Next, carefully set the glass of water down on the paper. Do you see a rainbow? If you don't, gently pick up the glass and lift it straight up away from the paper until you see a rainbow appear on the piece of paper. If it doesn't work the first time, you might need to put the glass down slowly and try again, or carefully tip the glass just a little in the beam of sunlight.

Once you see a rainbow on the paper, look at it carefully. How many colors do you see? It might be hard to tell but a rainbow is needed the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. So where do this rainbow come from? The fact is all of these colors are always in sunlight, we just can't see them because they're all mixed together, but when sunlight moves from the air into the water in the glass bends in a special way. When it bends, the light separates into all the colors of the rainbow, we call the spending refraction.

We see rainbows outside whenever there's a lot of sunlight and a lot of water in the air, like during or right after a rainstorm, or in the mist at the bottom of a waterfall, or even around the spray from a sprinkler or a hose. The water in the air acts just like the water in your glass: the light refracts as it moves from the air into each tiny water droplet. So the big rainbow that you see outside comes from all the light being refracted through lots and lots of separate drop some water all at once.

Now that you know how to make your very own rainbow, do you want to do a little rainbow hunting the next time it rains? If you do, you'll just need to make sure of three things. First, it should be raining or just finished raining because you need for there to be lots of water in the air, so don't forget your boots and raincoat. Second, the sun needs to be shining brightly, and third, you need to stand with the sun behind you in order to see the rainbow in front of you, and then later in the day it is, the higher in the sky the rainbow will be, so if it's an afternoon early evening make sure to look up.

Good luck with your rainbow hunting and rainbow making, and thanks for joining us on SciShow kids. Do you have a question about something you see in the world around you? Get help from a grown up and let us know in the comments below or send us an email at kids@thscishow.com.