Rainy Day Rainbow - Recycled Art

Rainy Day Rainbow

This art project is great because it never really has to be done, also it's a cooperative project that you and your child or a group can do together.

1. Gather your Materials. For the Back of the rainbow I have used some extra wrapping paper but you can use anything, in the past I have used brown grocery bags taped together and it looked great! Glue is great for older preschoolers but if you are worried about the mess or if you have a glue eater ( I know I do! ), try some double stick tape!
2. Draw a rainbow, it doesn't have to be perfect or even good, the paper will cover it .
3. Get scrap paper or if you don't have that you can color some the colors you want. Then hand the paper to whoever loves to rip things, my 14 month old loved this part of the project.
4. Decide what order you want and start putting the paper in the arches.
5. Keep going and going- roll it up and wait until the next rainy day to add more scrap paper to it.

In my classroom a few years ago I used this activity as an alternative to going outside when it was raining, throughout the week we would save scrap paper and on a rainy day add it to our rainbow. The children who were 2-3 loved it and when it was done were very proud when I hung it up where their parents could see it. A long term project is a great experience for little ones, so don't worry about finishing it in one try!