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I know it’s still February, but we’ve been having lots of warmer weather recently here in NC, which is making me excited for spring.
We’ve had several rainy days recently too, though so I feel like an easy rainbow paper craft is fitting for this week. And who doesn’t love a good rainbow craft for kids?
This is a simple paper craft that is easy for older toddlers and preschoolers, but can also work well for young elementary kids
Rainbow Paper Craft for Kids
One thing I love about this craft is that it works well for science lessons, as a St. Patrick’s Day themed craft, or even as a Bible story lesson – we used it at our house to go along with the story of Noah’s Ark.
It’s also great for the development of fine motor skills, color recognition, and sorting. So many fun ways to use this project with your kids. And you probably already have all the supplies on hand.
Supplies
- Construction Paper – 1 piece each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
- You can actually just use 1/2 piece of each for one rainbow craft.
- 4 Large Cotton Balls
- Glue Stick
- Scissors
- Rainbow Template
Directions
There is a little bit of prep work for this project that you will need to do ahead of time.
Prep-Work
- Before starting, you’ll need to create a rainbow template. I just drew a rainbow and clouds on a piece of copy paper for this.
- You can download my template here.
- Write in the names of each color for the different sections of the rainbow.
- This will allow your child to identify which color goes into which section.
- Cut each color of construction paper into small pieces.
- I recommend using a paper cutter to cut the pages into strip and then just cutting the strips into smaller pieces. They do not have to all be the same size.
Making the Rainbow
This is the part for your kids.
- Cover one section at a time with glue.
- Stick the appropriate color pieces on the glue until each section is covered. Some white space is fine, but each section should end up mostly covered.
- Move onto the next section until the rainbow is filled.
- Cover the clouds with glue.
- Stretch out (or “tear up” as my toddler says) the cotton balls and stick them to the glue.
I’ll be honest, I’m really proud of how this one turned out. Little is proud of it, too, which makes me glad.
I will say though, that we had to do this project in multiple sittings as Little was tired of sticking the paper on after the yellow section. We put it away and he was excited to return to it later in the day.
For preschoolers or elementary kids, I think this could be done in just one sitting.
And as always, my usual reminder for crafts at home with kids – it doesn’t have to be perfect.
I like to show you these ideas as fun things you could try at home, but it’s important to remember that the memories and lessons happen in the process regardless of what the final product looks like when it comes to crafts with little ones.
If you enjoyed this craft, I’d love if you shared it on Facebook or Pinterest using the share buttons below so that others can enjoy it too!
For more fun rainbow themed activities, be sure to check out these posts:
Printable Rainbow and Pot of Gold Counting Activity
Rainbow is fantastic. My little girls loves this
Thank you! I’m so glad they liked it!
Nice rainbow 🌈 craft..
This is such a fun idea! My 3 year old is going to love it!
I bet it will be a hit!
thank you! we had fun doing it 🙂
Oh, I’m glad to hear this!
So fun, it’s a great idea. Thank you for sharing at The Really Crafty Link Party. Pinned!
I have been looking for things to do with Emmett and this will be perfect!!! Love!
We loved it! Had to do it in a couple of sittings though, but I love how it turned out.
Such a cute rainbow craft! Love this. Thanks for sharing on the Love to Learn Hop. You’re the Featured favorite for March! Stop by after the 1st Tuesday.
Thank you so much!
Such a fun and simple craft for kids of all ages! Thanks for sharing with us at Love to Learn. Pinned.
I also co-host a crafting linky on Wednesdays and we’d love to see projects like this liked up with us at The Virtual Refrigerator. You can find it at http://www.ourunschoolingjourney.com/2018/02/virtual-refrigerator-art-link-party.html
Thanks so much! We really enjoyed it!
Congrats! You are the featured favorite on the Love to Learn linky for the month of March. Thank you for linking up with us and I hope to see you again on Tuesday!
Thank you so much!
Is the rainbow template on your blog to download?
It is! Thank you for your comment – I’ve updated the links now so you should be able to easily access it! It’s also right here for you!
Aw, this is a really cute idea. I think my nephew would get impatient – he gets that way, but I could see my oldest niece enjoying this.
-Lauren
We had to do it in a couple of sittings. I’m always a fan of putting it away if we get tired of it and coming back to it later (or not).
Lovely!
My two smallest will love this!
These projects are not only fun, but great lessons in fine motor development that kids seem to be missing out on as fewer seem to do crafts at home. These projects build so many skills that kids don’t even realize because they are having fun while learning colors, shapes, and developing those oh so important motor skills that will allow them to do even more exciting things as they grow and develop.
I totally agree! It’s easy to forget about teaching fine motor skills, but you are right – they are so very important!
This is the perfect rainy day activity for my preschool buddy today! Thanks a million!
Oh good! I hope you were able to enjoy it!