Easy Sun & Rainbow Craft for Preschool

Cheerful sun and rainbow craft for kids made of orange semicircle with googly eyes and smile. Yellow rays on top, rainbow streamers, and white cotton at the base. Vibrant and playful.

This post includes book recommendations with Amazon Affiliate links. For more info, see this disclosure.

Easy Sun & Rainbow Craft for Preschool

Who doesn’t love rainbows? This easy rainbow craft is perfect for preschoolers and young kids, making it an ideal activity for both classrooms and at-home crafting.

Children will enjoy making this colourful rainbow craft to hang in their room, on their door, or just to run around with and make the rainbow streamers fly! It’s also great for many occasions, including St. Patrick’s Day, springtime lessons, weather units, or anytime you want to focus on colour recognition with preschoolers.

Read on for step-by-step instructions, plus helpful tips and fun extension activities at the end of the post!

Supplies

A4 or letter size yellow card
Strips of yellow or orange card or paper
Crepe paper in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink.
Cotton wool balls
Large googly eyes or round white stickers
String or wool
Scissors, glue & sticky tape

Instructions:

1. Draw and cut the sun: Take the piece of A4 or letter card and draw a semicircle shape measuring the entire width of the sheet (21-22cm) with a height of about 10cm. Alternatively, use the free template provided (see download box at the end of the post), then cut it out.

2. Cut the sunrays: Cut about 8 strips of yellow or orange card or paper, each measuring 11 cm x 2 cm. These will form the sunrays.

3. Cut the rainbow streamers: Cut strips of crepe paper about 2.5 cm wide and as long as you want. Ours were about 25 cm long. To save time, I cut the crepe paper while it´s still folded from out of the packet. This gives me very long strips that I then cut into shorter ones. I use crepe paper streamers in many crafts with lots of kids, so this is a quick and easy way to make plenty at once. But whatever your situation, they’re always great to have on hand for crafts!

4. Attach the sunrays: Stick the yellow (or orange) paper strips to the top part of the semicircle to make the sun rays. Some of my kids gave their suns “hairstyles” with the paper strips, and they looked fantastic!

5. Attach the rainbow streamers: Turn the sun over and stick a streamer of each colour onto the straight bottom of the sun, in the order of the rainbow colours; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink. (I know that the rainbow actually has indigo and violet instead of purple and pink. However, as an ESL preschool teacher I prefer to keep it simple and teach the basic colours. You could leave off the pink if you want to make a more traditional rainbow!)

6. Add the clouds: Stick cotton balls onto the tops of the streamers to create fluffy clouds.

7. Add the face: Draw eyes or stick on googly ones, and add a mouth to bring the sun to life.

8. Attach a string for hanging: Turn the sun over and tape a piece of wool or string to the back so it can be easily hung up.

Three children holding colorful paper sun crafts with rainbow streamers and cotton clouds. The tone is cheerful and playful in a classroom setting.

Advice for small group classes:

This preschool rainbow craft is simple and mess-free, making it ideal for small groups and young children. It can easily be completed in under an hour with minimal supervision.

Other tips:

Precut sunrays and streamers beforehand.
Make it even more interactive by dividing the streamers by colour around the room and having the children choose one from each pile.
When sticking the cotton balls, be sure to explain to children that they should put the glue on the paper. In my experience, most kids will try to put the glue on the cotton wool, which leads to some very furry glue sticks!

How The Rainbow Craft Can Be Used in the Classroom

This preschool rainbow craft is a fantastic way to integrate hands-on learning into your curriculum. It can be used to teach:

Colours – Have children name each colour as they pick their crepe paper strips.
Fine Motor Skills – Cutting, gluing, and placing the strips help develop hand-eye coordination.
Weather & Seasons – Tie the craft into lessons about the sun, rain, and the science behind rainbows.
Emotions & Expression – Let kids personalize their suns with different facial expressions to discuss feelings and emotions.

Tie-In Activities:

Storytime: Read books about rainbows, such as What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Schwartz, A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman or Elmer and the Rainbow by David McKee.
Rainbow Science: Create a simple rainbow using a glass of water and a flashlight to show how light refracts.
Rainbow and Colours Songs: Below are some songs and videos to help reinforce colour recognition.

Using This Sun & Rainbow Craft to Teach ESL to Young Kids

If you’re teaching English as a second language (ESL) to preschoolers, this rainbow craft for kids can be a great way to introduce and reinforce vocabulary:

Colour words – Have children say the colours out loud as they pick each strip.
Weather words – Teach words like “sun”, “rainbow”, “rain”, and “clouds” while making the craft.
Action words – Use verbs like “cut”, “glue”, “stick”, and “fold” to reinforce action words during the crafting process.
Following instructions – Give simple step-by-step commands to help develop listening skills.

Interactive ideas:

Rainbow Hunt: Hide coloured objects around the room and have children find them before crafting.
Colour Sorting Game: Let kids sort the crepe paper into colour groups before assembling their rainbows.
Describe & Show: Ask children to point to different parts of their craft and name them in English.

When to Do The Sun & Rainbow Craft

This easy rainbow craft is great for many occasions, including:

St. Patrick’s Day – Talk about the myth of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Springtime Lessons – Teach about seasonal changes and how rainbows appear.
Weather Unit – Use as part of a lesson on sun, rain, and clouds.
Colour Recognition Themes – Anytime you’re focusing on colours with preschoolers.