The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Giant Rainbow Collage

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Create a giant, beautiful and vibrant rainbow collage to consolidate knowledge of colours, practise sorting and matching and have a go at working on a large scale collaboratively!

A while ago we made colour balloons to go on the wall. It’s amazing to compare the progression in Cakie’s understanding between those two occasions, as this time, at 2 and a half,  she was able to name and sort all of the colours and talk about where they belonged and why.
I cut a large semi-circle from a piece of a cardboard box (can you tell yet how much I love boxes?!) Then I painted on a basic rainbow using poster paints while Cakie painted freely on another piece of cardboard next to me. We left it to dry and went to find the colour buckets from our colour hunt, and started to sort through our papers and collage materials.
She was able to talk confidently about where the things should go and why, and was disturbed that we didn’t have a pink pot, so we found a temporary stand in!

Then I squeezed lots of runny glue onto one colour band at a time and she brushed it all over with a paintbrush.

Between us we then stuck all of the scrap materials from each bucket onto the corresponding colour and I was pretty impressed that none ended up in the wrong place! (not that it would have mattered anyway.)

It took us a little while but it would have taken a LOT longer if we hadn’t made it a collaborative project! She was pretty pleased with the finished product.

I love this photo of her staring at what she has made. She said “daddy’s gonna love it!” Yes he will baby.

The finished beauty! We are going to display this for baby’s rainbow birthday next week.

A couple of close ups of the lovely, recycled materials.

Oh how I love colour. And how much do I wish I’d listened to my Mum’s advice and not been afraid to embrace it a bit more when I was younger! Still, we could always try to make up for lost time 🙂

Happy rainbow colours, just perfect for birthday celebrations.

Giant rainbow collage

This activity is good for:
* recognising, naming and matching colours
* sorting and matching according to one criteria
* creativity
* fine motor skills development through tearing, sorting and sticking
* working together on a collaborative project (PHSE)

Cakie: 2.6

Comments

  9. Anonymous says

    I absolutely love your blog. So many fantastic ideas, which I have already borrowed lots of. My daughter has thoroughly enjoyed them all! Thank you.

  11. Anonymous says

    This is so beautiful! I would proudly hang that on my wall as a piece of art forever, never take it down! I’m going to make one with my daughter now. I know she will love it. 🙂

  13. Debbie says

    So very cute and colorful. Love the pic of her admiring her work. Definetly going to borrow this idea. 🙂

  15. Deborah says

    This is so gorgeous! I shared it with our curriculum coordinator for us to do over the summer. We are thinking of doing one arch of the rainbow a week:) Thank you for sharing your post on my rainbow linky!

  17. Sarah says

    Wow! It looks as though you both had such a great time making that rainbow! And your photos are gorgeous. My daughter is very into rainbows, and actually very into colours generally (they were her first words!). I reckon she’d love it if we made a giant one together. Thanks for sharing!

  18. RedTedArt says

    Rainbows are SUCH a joy and I love all your rainbow craft! A really happy session!

    Thank you for linking up to Kids Get Crafty! 🙂

    Maggy

  20. Rachel at Sun Scholars says

    That is beautiful!!! What a fabulous idea for the little ones!!!

    Thanks so much for sharing this at For the Kids Friday at Sun Scholars! I’ll be posting the next link party tonight, so be sure to stop by. I can’t wait to see what you have to share this week!

    🙂 rachel @ SunScholars.blogspot.com

  22. jfb57 says

    Fantastic & so do-able in a classroom! Thank you so much for linking with the Resource Centre! Hope to see you again next week!

  23. Becc says

    I keep coming back to this post when my world needs a hit of colour xxx you’re an inspiration xx

  25. Bridge says

    This is FABULOUS! My kiddiwinkles will LOVE it! I just told them this morning we should make a BIG rainbow and this activity will be perfect. Thanks 🙂

  26. Ali says

    That is a wonderful idea…and it produced a beautiful result. Your daughter must have been so proud of her effort.

  27. Ali says

    That is a wonderful idea…and it produced a beautiful picture. You daughter must have been very proud of her work.

  28. Anonymous says

    As a teacher of 33 years, I have never seen auch a beautiful project outcome for a rainbow idea. This is sooooo tactile and so pretty when done. Everyone is successful with this project!!

  29. Sarah says

    I love this one, We are adapting it for an Olympic theme for my boys. I have cut out 5 rings from cardboard and painted them. Tomorrow (hopefully) we will start with the collage part. thanks for the inspiration.