Rainbow Collage Craft

I have vented my frustration with this winter, and I am now ready to move on to spring! Here is a recent project that we did that looks very cheerful hanging in my now winter craft-free home. I am hoping that this will at least brighten my outlook on things since it doesn't appear that spring will actually arrive for a bit yet.

Materials:

• construction paper (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
• paper trimmer (optional)
• scissors
• glue stick
• box board (side of cereal box)
• large bowl, pan, or lid (for tracing)
• pen/pencil

{Rainbow by Mia, Age 7}

Directions:

1. Cut one inch strips of colored paper. Trim each strip into smaller squares, about one inch in diameter. (Note: Older kids can also use this for scissor skills practice and cut their own. I chose to have materials ready in case my little dude also wanted to make a rainbow.)
2. Cut away one side from a cereal box. Using a large bowl, pan, or lid, trace around it to make an arch, starting from one end and going to the other. Using one side as the base, you will end up with a semi-circle. Cut out the semi-circle. (If desired, you can do some additional cutting to the center section to make it into a true arch. Mia wanted it as-is, so I didn't do that.)
3. Give child the box board semi-circle (or arch), paper squares, and a glue stick and let her create a rainbow. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Mia did it very carefully, laying out the red partway, and then starting each other color, until she knew how it would look. She discovered that she had to overlap some tiles to work with the curves. I was really impressed at how she handled this with so much skill and dexterity! (Optional note: You can first draw lines to make the rainbow into sections. This may be helpful to younger children.) Tip: Another fun addition would be to add cotton ball clouds. Regular school glue or tacky glue works best for that. 

   

   {Mia was systematic about laying the collage tiles.}

4. Once the glue is dry, display the rainbow collage -- perfect for St. Patrick's Day or any rainy day!

Turkey Collage with Dried Beans

While searching for Thanksgiving crafts that we hadn't done yet, I came across this cute variation on a hand print turkey and decided it was perfect entertainment for my little turkeys.

Materials:

• paper plate
• marker
• dried beans or pasta
• white glue (optional)

Directions:

1. Trace your child's hand onto a paper plate. If desired, add a beak, wattle, and legs to the turkey. Older kids can do this step themselves.
2. Give your child some dried beans or pasta. We used kidney beans, navy beans, black beans, pinto beans, split peas, and spiral pasta. Popcorn kernels are another option. I put each kind of bean into its own bowl, but you could mix them all together if you prefer. 
3. Kids can either decorate their turkey and glue down their design to make it permanent, or they can arrange and re-arrange the turkey as many times as they want, skipping the glue.

Autumn Tree Collage

{Autumn Tree Collage by Mia, Age 4}

Materials:

• tissue paper in fall colors 
• paper (or printable tree template)
• brown crayon
• scissors
• glue
• foam paintbrush (optional)
• green crayon (optional)

Directions:

1. Draw a tree using a brown crayon. We traced Mia's hand and forearm for this but you could also use a printable template if you prefer.
2. Cut or tear small pieces of brown, red, yellow, and green tissue paper. (We had no orange, but this would also be nice for the leaves.)
3. Cover the tree trunk and area where you will put leaves with glue. (We watered ours down very slightly and applied it with a foam paintbrush.)
4. Adhere brown tissue paper to the trunk of the tree and various other fall colored tissue paper where you would like the leaves to be. You could also add some tissue paper to look like falling or fallen leaves if you wish.
5. Mia chose to draw grass with a green crayon to finish her collage. You could also make grass with pieces of green tissue paper or cut a long rectangle and use scissors to fringe it before gluing it to your paper.