11 Rainbow and Rain Crafts for Preschoolers
Rainy days get a bad rap, but there’s so much to appreciate about the rain and its oft-resulting rainbows. They’re the perfect vehicle to teach colors, weather, and even basic light refraction. Not to mention, preschool rainbow crafts are historically fan favorites! Grab your umbrella and sneak a peek at some of these creative rain and rainbow crafts for preschoolers.
Rainbow Craft Ideas
This fun, introductory preschool rainbow craft gets the students up and moving! Pin one color of the rainbow to each child’s shirt, and then have them line up so the colors are in the correct order. This is a great way to review colors and their proper sequence in the rainbow.
For a more hands-on option, provide students with a rainbow template from Preschool With a Purpose to color. Allow them to use crayons or markers, glue and bits of colored construction or tissue paper, or if you’re feeling extra generous, colored glitter! Download a free rainbow coloring printable!
Paper plate rainbows make for fantastic classroom decorations when finished! To save time, pre-cut the plates in half. From here, there are a few options. For a simpler preschool rainbow craft, affix a template to the plate halves and let the students make their rainbows with chosen materials as in the craft above. To take this craft to the next level, glue a few cotton ball clouds to the end of each rainbow and add blue streamers or paper strips beneath the clouds to represent the rain!
For a more complex lesson, take a literal page out of The Highlights Book of How and learn about the magic behind a rainbow. Lay a piece of white paper down on a flat, sunny surface. Fill a clear glass a little over halfway with water and place it on the white paper. Explain how water “bends” the sunlight, creating a rainbow.
A garden hose can also “bend” the sunlight, and it’s so easy even the smallest of hands can do it. Standing with your back to the sun, spray a gentle mist from the hose in different directions until the rainbow is bright and beautiful.
Rosie Research explains how to make another kind of prism using a glass bowl, water, and small mirror. This one is good for a cloudy day as a flashlight can be used instead of natural sunlight to create the rainbow.
Rain Craft Ideas
Again, making use of the easy and inexpensive paper plate, this time children turn half a plate into an umbrella! Pre-cut the plates and the umbrella handles, then let your preschoolers color and glue them together.
This is a more detailed version of the paper plate umbrella, but it’s 3D and oh-so-worth it! This one uses the plate, fingerpaints, fuzzy sticks, sticky tape (or stapler), string, and blue cut-outs of raindrops.
Here is a simple and inexpensive preschool rain craft that only requires three things: cotton balls, cotton swabs, and cardstock. Children glue clumps of cotton ball clouds and cotton swab raindrops onto blue cardstock, creating a rainy-day scene.
What’s more fun than popping bubble wrap? Painting it, of course! This craft uses bubble wrap, white paper, colored construction paper, blue paint, and glue. Teacher tip: precut the umbrella pieces to save time.
These milk carton rain cloud suncatchers are a fantastic way to recycle those old cartons while creating some pretty amazing artwork! Kids will need help completing some of the craft steps, but the end result is so impressive, everyone will love them.
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About the Author:
Stephanie Jankowski is an educator and author who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When she's not teaching or writing, she's spending time with her children, Brady, Ella, and Lyla, and marveling at just how short the years really are.