Snipped Yarn Preschool Rainbow Craft
As St. Patrick’s Day draws near, why not spread the luck with a cheerful snipped yarn preschool rainbow craft?
There may not be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but it is delightfully special, nonetheless.
Your little leprechauns will love how these rainbows brighten up your classroom. And, you will love how this preschool rainbow craft offers a huge amount of skills practice for your little lads and lasses.
This snipped yarn rainbow craft challenges preschoolers to use their best scissor cutting skills, hand control and fine motor skills, too!
Why Do Rainbow Crafts
This project is the perfect balance of fun, artistry and learning!
I love the texture the snipped yarn gives the rainbows – It’s something unexpected.
This craft allows for each piece to turn out completely unique and different from another student’s rainbow. It also requires a whomping huge opportunity to develop scissor skills and fine motor skills!
Rainbow activities aren’t just appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day lesson plans. Rainbow crafts like this one can be added to a weather preschool theme, seasons preschool theme, or a spring preschool theme.
For more St. Patty’s Day hands-on activities, be sure to check out my St. Patrick’s Day Activity Pack for some mighty learning fun for ye little lads and lasses!
Rainbow Themed Books for Kids
Everyone loves a bright and cheery rainbow book! Enjoy these rainbow picks full of spring and colorful illustrations, perfect for preschool and kindergarten.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no cost to you, I may earn a small sum if you click through and make a purchase.
- Hardcover Book
- Sweeney, Monica (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Ehlert, Lois (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Freeman, Don (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 32 Pages – 12/14/1978 (Publication Date) – Puffin Books (Publisher)
- Rustad, Martha E. H. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 24 Pages – 07/31/2017 (Publication Date) – Capstone Pr Inc (Publisher)
- Used Book in Good Condition
- Hardcover Book
- Pfister, Marcus (Author)
- Rose, Olena (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 29 Pages – 02/28/2021 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
Rainbow Craft for Preschool
Preschoolers need loads of opportunities for scissor cutting practice. You can do that by offering cutting practice worksheets or process-based crafts like this one…or both!
This colorful craft is fun rainbow activity for preschoolers. They will love it!
Snipped Yarn Craft
In this rainbow art activity, preschoolers practice scissor cutting by snipping colorful yarn and gluing it onto their own beautiful rainbow creation.
Materials
- yarn in rainbow colors
- rainbow cut-out
- liquid glue or wide double sided tape
- sharp scissors
The Set Up
I have used these wooden rainbow cut-outs which made this craft fun and easy.
In advance, cut four feet lengths of yarn in each color for each student, preferably cotton yarn. Acrylic yarn frays easily and isn’t as easy to cut as cotton.
How to Make Snipped Yarn Rainbow Craft
You will want to guide your preschoolers, step by step, in the important yarn-cutting phase of this rainbow craft.
Offer one color at a time for all your students to snip with their scissors.
I explained that they could choose to make their strings long or short, or they could snip a mixture of long and short. However, I did encourage the students to keep the pieces of yarn less than about four inches, but who is measuring?
Cutting the yarn obviously gives the students more practice in scissor cutting, but it also requires some serious critical thinking on the students’ part.
Unlike paper, you cannot hold out a piece of yarn without it limping over the end of your finger or hand, so the students had to consider and experiment to figure out just how exactly they could cut the yarn.
As you can see from the above picture, one student held a longer length of yarn so that the end dangled away from his hand, and he snipped it into smaller pieces while it dangled in the air. (This is why you need sharp scissors. Use caution, but with proper training, preschoolers can be safe with sharp scissors.)
The student in the foreground, whose hands you can only see, felt that it was easier to cut the yarn if he held several strings at once. Another student tried laying the yarn on the preschool table and snipping with the tip of his scissors. One student asked that I hold one end of the string while she held the other and cut the taut piece of yarn.
Yarn crafts with preschoolers can be time consuming. One easy method to help move the process along is to take one color of yarn to the table and have the children stand and snip while holding the yarn taut.
Once yarn of each rainbow color was snipped into appropriate lengths, I invited the students to tell me what they noticed about their piles of yarn. Immediately students began jabbering about the various lengths of yarn that had been cut.
Who had the longest? What about the teeny tiniest? Who had the biggest pile? And who had the “mixed-upiest” pile?
I asked the students what they noticed about the colors of yarn they had cut.
Rainbow Yarn Glue Art
Once the yarn is cut and ready, I give each student a rainbow shaped cut-out.
I water down some liquid school glue so the students can easily paint the glue onto their cut-out, covering it in its entirety.
Next, students can glue their yarn onto their rainbows, as they desire.
Some students were intentional about the order they added their colors. The above preschooler wanted her rainbow colors to reflect a “real rainbow” so she followed the traditional order.
This student didn’t worry of much about the order of his rainbow colors, but as he added each color he named them and shared something he had seen in that color.
“This color is red. I put red on my rainbow. Strawberries are red.” Every color! I kid you not!
Once all the colors are added, have the preschoolers pull apart cotton balls for the clouds and glue them on.
These are simple rainbows that are a nice mix of crafts and process art. While some preschoolers chose to follow all the colors of the rainbow, others did not. Allowing the children to choose is important.
Here are some of the finished rainbows.
More Rainbow Preschool Crafts
Whether you’re adding this to your St. Patrick’s Day preschool lesson plans or you’re looking for a craft to add to your weather unit, here are funtastic rainbow craft ideas:
- How to Make a Preschool Rainbow Craft with Pipe Cleaners
- Rainbow Crafts for Kids
- 20 Rainbow Crafts for Preschool Kids
- 25 EASY Rainbow Crafts for Preschoolers
Rainbow Crafts for Toddlers
Toddlers love rainbows and crafts just as much as their preschool counterparts. I have rounded up some fabulous, fun rainbow crafts that your toddlers and preschoolers are sure to enjoy!
- Paper Plate Rainbow Craft
- Gorgeous Handprint Rainbow Painting
- Rainbow Rolling Pin Art
- Easy Rainbow Craft Activities For Toddlers
Rainbow Preschool Toys
Hands-on play in the most exciting way! These rainbow and color themed toys are sure to bring any rainbow theme to life. Grab a few and watch your preschoolers stack, count, and sort in a big way!
- Fun Stacking Toys: Stack-a-Rainbow-Tree is in the shape of cute leaves. It’s endless fun for…
- Develop Skills: Keep balance, otherwise the tree would fall down! The kids toys encourage…
- Learning & Education Toys: The preschool toy comes in 7 bright colors, which is great for colors…
- Building Colorful Skills: Kids learn a rainbow of sorting, patterning, and early addition skills…
- Fine Motor Fun: Designed for little hands, this toddler toy’s fine motor tongs help kids build…
- Built-In Storage: When playtime’s done, this preschool learning toy’s 30 counters, 5 activity…
- The Science of Color: Kids discover the science behind color mixing with this 14-piece deluxe…
- Real Science Skills: As they follow along with the full-color guide’s 10 fun science experiments…
- Kid-Sized Lab Tools: Designed for little hands, this science kit’s color lenses, test tube,…
- Safe Rainbow Stacking Toy: Made of natural wood and coated with non-toxic water-based paint. Smooth…
- 4 in 1 Nesting Stacking Toys: Rainbow Stacker Playset includes 4 shapes of wooden rainbow in 11…
- Montessori toys for 3 year old kid: Perfect learning toys for kids which can help your children…
- Learning Made Fun – Our unique STEM toys keep your child playing for hours on end. They’ll…
- Endless Possibilities – With 70 unique star-shaped pieces in 5 different shapes and 6 bright colors,…
- Safe and Durable – Made from high-quality, non-toxic BPA plastic, these connectors for kids can…
- Learn through play: Engage your little one in immersive learning and play with our captivating STEM…
- Easy lesson planning: Suitable for kindergarten learning activities, daycares, classrooms, and…
- Rainbow Bear Bliss: Designed to motivate and stimulate young minds, these color sorting toys for…
Snipped Yarn Preschool Rainbow Craft
Rainbow crafts are great for a variety of preschool themes, including St. Patrick's Day, Weather, Spring, Colors and more!
This Snipped Yarn Preschool Rainbow Craft will make a fun addition to the preschool theme of your choice.
This brightly colored rainbow craft also offers wonderful scissor-cutting and fine motor skills practice.
Help your preschoolers create their very own beautiful rainbow and be sure to decorate your classroom or home with the finished masterpieces.
Materials
- yarn in rainbow colors
- rainbow cut-out
- liquid glue or wide double-sided tape
- sharp scissors
Instructions
- To prep, cut four feet lengths of yarn in each color for each student, preferably cotton yarn.
- Offer one color at a time for all your students to snip with their scissors.
- I encourage the students to keep the pieces of yarn less than about four inches.
- One method to help move the process along is to take one color of yarn out and have the children snip while holding the yarn taut. Repeat with each color.
- Once the yarn is cut and ready, I give each student a rainbow shaped cut-out.
- I water down some liquid school glue so the students can easily paint the glue onto their cut-out, covering it in its entirety.
- Next, students can glue their yarn onto their rainbows, as they desire.
- Once all the colors are added, have the preschoolers pull apart cotton balls for the clouds and glue them on.
Notes
Ways to Modify this Craft:
I get it. Snipping yarn can be tedious and messy, with little strings everywhere. If that's not your cup of tea, try these alternatives.
- tissue paper
- construction paper
- scribbles of glitter glue all over
Recommended Products
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More Rainbow Ideas for Preschool
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
Is there a rainbow template that you might be able to share please? Thank you
Because there is so much glue used to hold all the snipped yarn in place, I have moved to using a rainbow die-cut. Card stock wasn’t always heavy duty enough. Here is what I now use:
https://amzn.to/48O6Oad
I just LOVE these!