How many ways can you make a rainbow?
These simple printable rainbow templates can be used in lots of different ways, and they are a great way to learn about rainbows and explore colours.
This simple printable rainbow activity can be used in lots of different ways to make lots of different rainbows!
This is a great rainbow activity for St Patrick’s Day, or a fun activity for learning colours. It’s also a great hands on activity for a rainbow learning theme in the classroom, or simply a fun activity to do with your kids at home.
If your kids are interested in rainbows these free printable rainbow templates (scroll to the end of the post to get the printables) can be used in so many fun and creative ways.
We came up with five fun and easy ways to use these printable rainbow templates to make a rainbow.
Loose Parts Rainbow Activity
This is my favourite way to make a rainbow because you get to go on a rainbow scavenger hunt and collect all kinds of rainbow coloured objects before you arrange them on your rainbow!
Collect lots of different loose parts in all of the rainbow colours. You could use pipe cleaners, buttons, popsicle sticks, pom poms, and glass gems or whatever you can find. If you need more ideas you can find a huge list of things you can use for loose parts here.
This is a great way to work out those fine motor muscles as the kids carefully place and arrange the small objects to fill the rainbow with colours.
Collage Rainbow Activity
This is a great way to make a rainbow because you can use lots of different craft materials to collage each colour.
We used torn up pieces of paper (tearing paper is another good fine motor activity for little hands) to make our rainbow but you could use wool, or fabric, recycled junk mail or even natural materials.
Play Dough Rainbow Activity
Laminate the rainbow printable, or slip it into a plastic pocket, and you can use and reuse it as a playdough mat.
Use this easy microwave playdough recipe to make some homemade playdough, just make plain dough and then separate the batch into 7 pieces, adding colour to each piece, and kneading it in. Or use some store bought playdoh in rainbow colours.
This is a great activity for practicing rolling long sausages out of playdough. You could also add some scissors to snipping the playdough to the right length, and some rainbow coloured loose parts and accessories to decorate each colour.
Watercolour Rainbow Activity
Using watercolour paints is a beautiful way to make a rainbow.
Watercolour disks are a great way to add colour to your rainbow. They are easy to use, low mess, and older kids will have fun blending each colour as they learn about colour mixing and the colour spectrum.
Doodle Colouring Rainbow Activity
These two printable rainbow templates make great drawing prompts or colouring pages.
Grab some markers, pencils or oil pastels and fill your rainbow with colour! Older kids might like the challenge of filling each row of the rainbow with coloured patterns, zentangles, or drawings.
Free Printable Rainbow Templates
There are two different printable rainbow templates – one has some clouds, and one is just a rainbow. Both rainbow templates are perfect for all kinds of rainbow crafts and activities.
This printable is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open it. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.
What other ways can you make a rainbow?
I’m sure you and your kids can come up with lots of other great ways to use these rainbow templates. You might think of a way to create a 3D rainbow collage, or try some crayon resist painting, or use oil pastel paint to colour your rainbow. You are only limited by your imagination!
If your kids are interested in rainbows you might also like these fun rainbow activities for kids:
Would love to do these for a project!!