This Rainbow Collage For Toddlers And Preschoolers makes a perfect St. Patrick’s Day craft, but it’s great any time of year to help kids with colour recognition and colour matching.  Using scraps from your craft room, kids will match items to the colours on the paper to create a vibrant rainbow collage.Â
As the dull and dreary winter months come to an end, I start to crave colour, so I shift our focus to colourful toddler crafts here in my home daycare.
As you can imagine, rainbow projects are perfect for this! Â With their big arcs of vibrant colours, there’s nothing like a rainbow to brighten up your day!
This rainbow collage was the perfect craft for a dreary winter day.
It was a great lesson in colour recognition and fine motor control, and the colours were a real pick-me-up on a grey morning!
Supplies:
- white paper or cardboard
- markers
- glue
- paint
- cotton balls
- colourful craft scraps – foam pieces, pom poms, fabric scraps, tissue paper, stickers, craft gems etc.
Instructions:
First, I set up bowls filled with bright paper cuttings and various colourful craft supplies (pompoms, stickers, foam pieces, bits of fabric etc). Â Use whatever bits and pieces you have at home. Â You could also use yarn, buttons, jewels, etc. Â You get the idea.
Then I drew some rainbows on white cardboard, and used markers to define the sections of the rainbows and loosely coloured the sections in so the kids would know which colours to glue where. 
The hooligans matched the crafty odds and ends to the colours on the paper to fill in their rainbows.
To finish, they used watercolour paints to paint the sky and they glued some cotton balls on for clouds. 
Aren’t they pretty?!
What a fun and creative way for kids to learn about rainbow order, to work on colour recognition and colour matching, and to strengthen their fine motor skills. 
More Rainbow Crafts and Activities:
- Rainbow Wind Chimes
- Rainbow Scavenger Hunt
- Rainbow Water – a Colour Mixing Experiment
- Rainbow Stacking Stones
Get 3-5 Playful Preschool e-Book!
25+Preschool activities by 25 bloggers, 10 printables, PLUS 50 links to activities not featured in the book all for $8.99!
Follow the Hooligans on Facebook
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
Â
karen hunter
great ideas!!
entertainingmonsters
These are so pretty, I’ll definitely be trying this with my daughter. Thanks for the idea.
happyhooligans
You’re welcome! We had a lot of fun with them. I’d like to make a more grown up version of one. I’m thinking of making it in the form of a colour wheel, and hanging it in the space that we craft in. 🙂 Have fun with yours!
Kristin @ Preschool Universe
I really like this rainbow craft, not least because hunting for the colored materials will keep my kiddo occupied for a while.
happyhooligans
Ah, I should have thought to do that! Instead, I spent about an hour collecting all the stuff myself! 😛
Dionna @ Code Name: Mama
I love this idea! What a great way to use up some of your random craft supplies.
MaryLea Martin Harris
This is adorable and Rainbows always make me happy! I just shared your link with my Pink and Green Mama Blog Facebook Fans! : )
happyhooligans
Glad you like them, MaryLea! Thanks for sharing on your page. 🙂
Rachel
So pretty! I love the added touch of the watercolored sky with the clouds. We just picked up some Rainbow books at the library so we will have to try this activity out.
crystal@growingajeweledrose
What a fun craft! I love rainbow activities. Thanks for sharing it with Tuesday Tots! I have pinned it to the Tuesday Tots board 🙂
happyhooligans
Thanks so much, Crystal!
Terri
These turned out so pretty! Thanks for linking them to the Kids Co-op! I’m featuring them as one of my favorite posts from last week!
Jamie
I love this idea! Can I ask you what your children’s ages are? I want to try this with my almost three year old twins, but I’m not sure it will work.
happyhooligans
We did it with 2’s, 3’s and 4’s, and even the 2’s did well with some direction. 🙂
Cindy deRosier
I’m the Editorial Assistant for Fun Family Crafts and I wanted to let you know that we have featured your rainbow project! It looks SO fun and I can’t wait to try it! You can see the feature here:
http://funfamilycrafts.com/rainbow-collage/
Thanks for a wonderful project!
happyhooligans
Thanks so much, Cindy! I’m thrilled that you’ve featured a couple of our crafts today! I’ll have to pop over for a visit!
Debs
Thanks for linking to Tuesday Tots. I’ve featured this gorgeous activity this week 🙂
happyhooligans
THank you so much, Debs! You are awesome! I’ll pop over. 🙂