The next time you’re at a paint store, stock up on paint chip samples (free) in every color of the rainbow. Then you can turn your next walk in a garden into a magical rainbow hunt!

If you don’t have a garden of your own, find the nearest botanical garden or arboretum and enjoy this game on a summer’s afternoon.

Most paint samples come in strips of 4 or 5, so I cut them into individual squares and then placed all our “rainbow chips” in a bucket.

There are two ways to play and we tried both. First, Travis selected a paint chip at random and we hunted until we found just the right shade…

Aha!

Or, we spotted a flower that we liked and then found the paint chip that was nearest in color in our bucket.

Travis loved crossing every color of the rainbow off the list!

This game was a fantastic prompt for stopping to appreciate a garden on another level…

for paying attention to flowers we otherwise might have missed….

and for enjoying all the scents and textures around us.

Another great hit from Barefoot Books Kids’ Garden cards.