As the weather warms up, we see a lot of rain and a lot of sunshine. It’s the perfect time of year to spot rainbows! This Rainbow Paper Craft collage is perfect for any time you’re talking about rainbows!
Spring and summer are great for rainbows but so is St. Patrick’s Day! Rainbows and spectrums are also science topics that all kids seem to love!

Rainbow Paper Craft for Preschool
RAINBOW PAPER CRAFT COLLAGE
I’ve always loved rainbows and my kids seem to love them too. Paper crafts are always fun and you usually have most of the materials around the house. If you don’t have the exact materials we used here, you can improvise with whatever you can find too!
On a rainy day when we didn’t have a ton of construction paper, I had the kids color their own colored paper for a craft once! We didn’t need a ton of paper but they had fun using crayons to make it the colors we needed! This is one of those easy crafts that you can make when the weather just won’t let up and you need something to keep the little ones busy!
If you’re looking for some children’s books to go along with this craft, here are some of our favorites:
A Rainbow of My OwnHow the Crayons Saved the Rainbow
Ava and the Rainbow (Who Stayed)
Rainbow (Weather Ready-to-Reads)
RAINBOW ART MATERIALS
- Colored construction paper or craft paper – red, orange, yellow, green, blue (light and dark), purple
- Green yarn
- Cotton balls
- White school glue
- Pencil
- Scissors
Lightweight Construction PaperClassic Yarn, Paddy Green
Cotton Balls, 100 Count
Elmer’s Liquid School Glue
HOW TO MAKE THIS PAPER RAINBOW CRAFT
1. Choose a piece of paper to be the background of your rainbow art collage. We usually use light or dark blue to represent the sky.
2. Adults – sketch a simple rainbow outline to give your preschoolers a guide. It doesn’t have to be perfect at all because it will be covered by paper and other craft materials.
Sketch a rainbow, the clouds, and a line for the grass at the bottom of the paper.
3. Pull apart a few cotton balls so they cover more area. Have the child put glue on the cloud area (or make this an adult job if the child is too young). Then place the cotton on the glue. Repeat with both clouds.
3. Then draw a line of glue along the grass outline. Press green yarn along the glue. This is great fine motor practice.
Kids can make the grass straight lines or wavy lines. This is where you can let them get creative!
4. Cut a piece of each color construction paper (red, orange, yellow, green, dark blue, and purple) into small square pieces. You want the pieces to be about the same size.
(You can also make this craft with torn paper for a fun look. Letting the kids tear the colored paper into pieces is something they always seem to have fun doing!)
5. Draw a line of glue along the first layer of the sketched rainbow outline.
6. Choose a color to start with. We usually start with red and then work in rainbow order to help the kids learn the color order. But you can start with red on the outside later or the inside layer for a change of pace like we did!
Glue squares of the first color along the entire glue line.
7. Then draw a glue line on the next layer of the rainbow and choose the second color. Repeat for all of the colors until you have a rainbow!
You can also out small pieces of blue colored craft paper and attach them randomly around the top and sides of the rainbow to represent the sky in a way that makes it look more like a collage!
If you want to do this rainbow craft entirely with paper, all you need is some extra green paper and some white paper. You can use paper squares that you cut or torn paper to make the clouds and grass.
If you have extra yellow paper, you can even add a sun to your art! This is a simple craft idea that can be done more than once because you can change it up each time!
If you’re looking for another fun rainbow craft, I love the one at Arty Crafty Kids because it uses some of our favorite things — paint and paper plates! Click here to check it out!
MORE PRESCHOOL RAINBOW CRAFTS & ACTIVITIES
Click the image below to save it to Pinterest so you don’t lose it!
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