Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Easy St. Patrick's Day (or any day!) snack or lunch:

Fruity Rainbows!

You'll need one type of fruit for each color of the rainbow, plus whipped cream for the puffy clouds!

I cut the fruit to make them lay flat easier. Sort into muffin tins and let the kids make their own! Fun and nutritious! (Well, minus the clouds). :)

Enjoy!

Building Rainbows

J loves rainbows.  So of course, I’m going to capitalize on this interest to teach all that I can.  Using rainbows to teach colors is of course great.  We have rainbows drawn outside on our driveway every week during the summer.  Today it finally clicked that I could use rainbows to teach size, similar to the colorful stacking rings J has had since infancy.

 

I cut each band of the rainbow out of construction paper and had J glue them in the correct order (largest to smallest).

Afterwards, it occurred to me that this could be a good airplane activity.  Since we fly so often, potential plane activities are always on my mind. I would precut foam/felt instead of construction paper and let J create on the seatback tray.  Foam/felt creations work well on planes and they take up little space and weight in your carryon!

This would also be a good craft after discussing the story of Noah, emphasizing that the God still places rainbows in the sky to remind us that He always keeps his promises.

To increase the level of difficulty, just add more bands to the rainbow.

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Papertowel Painting

This is the perfect “painting” activity for little ones since it involves very little mess. 

I drew some pictures on a paper towel with a washable marker (“A” and an apple, since we were working on the letter A). I gave J some paintbrushes and a cup with a TINY amount of water. As he paints the paper towel, he can watch the marker spread. J really liked this craft and it was simple to clean up! 

When J was a little older, I started letting him draw his own picture on the papertowels.  They have to learn to be very careful not to tear the towel when drawing on it. 

**If they use too much water, the picture basically disappears, becoming a tye-dye style art piece.  This is perfectly fine, since it’s all about the process in my opinion.  Some kids might be disappointed to see their picture disappear however, so be warned!  

Here are two examples of the final product:

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Paper Plate Streamer Rainbow

This is a great time of year to talk about rainbows. The rainy season of spring brings rainbows. And rainbows are something fun to tie into any St. Patrick's Day learning you may be doing.

This is a very simple activity. It is a fun, simple craft that can morph into a fun gross motor activity.

Age Range

Toddler and up.

Preparation

• Gather supplies
• Cut flat circle out of paper plate (as shown above)

Supplies

• Paper plate
• Streamers in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (two shades if you can find them)
• Glue

Activity

Talk about colors and rainbows and the order of a rainbow. The picture above is a picture of one Brayden made in preschool last year; obviously he didn't put the colors in order. You can decide if you want to focus on color order or just let the child put them on in any order.

Have your child glue the streamers onto one side of the plate. 

Now you can run around with your rainbow! One side (the empty side) is perfect for holding while your streamers stream behind you!