Make a rainbow paper sculpture craft using strips of brightly coloured paper and glue!
We set out some strips of brightly coloured paper with some pieces of card and glue sticks. They played around with the strips and we talked about how to use them to turn the paper from 2 dimensions into 3 dimensions, by bending, twisting, folding and scrunching.
Together we tried simply bending the strips into arcs to represent the bands of a rainbow, glueing both ends to the sheet of card to make them stand up tall. After this the girls went ahead and made their own rainbow representations, with Miss 3 leading the way with her enthusiasm and demonstrating some real concentration and fine motor skills.
They discussed the order of the colours of the rainbow and looked at our wooden rainbow toy to confirm as they stuck them down. Then they asked for some extras to embellish the pictures with, using cotton balls and plastic gold coins to make clouds and treasure!
They chose to place these materials in different places and were really pleased with their creations!
Here is Miss 6’s finished creation, with which she also told a lovely story.
I absolutely love what Miss 4 decided to do with the materials! She experimented with ways to fold, bend and join the strips to make them stand up on the card in different ways. She didn’t want to create a rainbow but a simple rainbow coloured paper collage, which I adore.
We have displayed these alongside our wooden rainbow stacking toys and rainbow gnomes, so that they can be used as part of imaginative play set ups and for storytelling prompts.
What they are learning while they play:
physical: fine motor control and coordination, exploring textures
maths: discussing 2D and 3D, making arcs, counting
creativity: making simple sculptures, combining media