Take craft tape and tape it across two surfaces that are the same height such as between two countertops. For an added challenge, put the tape sticky side down. To keep it festive, use tape in all the colors of the rainbow. Take a set of rainbow bears (linked HERE) (or other small rainbow colored trinkets that you have) and challenge your child to try and balance the bears on their matching color of tape (ex: red bears on red tape, etc). See how many they can balance without falling off!
Draw out a rainbow leaving enough space for a sticker between each color. In this picture, lowercase letters were written inside each band. On the corresponding dot stickers (linked
HERE), write out the same letters but in uppercase. For example, if you wrote r in the red band then you would write R on a red sticker. Continue this with different letters in all the bands. Kids love this because they are making a beautiful rainbow out of stickers, parents love it because they are working on letter identification! It's a win win! You can easily change out letters to numbers or shapes as well.
Draw out a rainbow for your child. Then, set out Q-tips and rainbow colored paint and let your kids dot away while color matching. It's as simple as that but still so engaging!
This activity is SUPER simple to prep but will have your kids running around and talking so much! You will probably even get to drink your coffee while it's hot if you have this ready to go in the morning haha! Just draw a rainbow on a large piece of paper and lay it on the floor. Then, challenge your kids to go and find toys around the house in each color of the rainbow. They will place the toys in the corresponding section and keep going until the rainbow is complete!
.
.
Draw a picture with different colors and write a bunch of different colored A’s (or whatever letter you’re working on) all over the page. In this example, the letter "A" was used. Make sure the colors you make your A’s are also the colors you have to “dot” with. If you don't have dot markers (linked HERE) you could use Q-tips and paint, dot stickers, or markers would work fine too. Use what you have around the house. Then have your child take the dot markers and dot all of the A's (or whatever letter you used) with the matching color. When they are done, they will have a colorful picture full of learning!
Draw lots of rainbows all over a piece of paper. Color in the bands of each rainbow, but leave one band white in every rainbow. Switch off which band is white for each rainbow. Example: rainbow 1 has the red band white, rainbow 2 has the orange band white, rainbow 3 has the blue band white, etc. Leave out paint, markers, or crayons in the colors of the rainbow. Challenge your child to figure out which colored band is missing in each rainbow and color it in!
.
.
Draw a rainbow on a piece of paper. Write different numbers across each band of the rainbow. On colored dot stickers, write the same numbers that are in each band (Ex: if the red band has 2,6,7,9 written on the paper, you need 2,6,7,9 written on the red dot stickers). Let your child peel off the dot stickers, and place them on the correct number to complete the rainbow!
.
.
Our friend
@engaging_littles created this adorable rainbow craft on her Instagram page. All you need is a half paper plate, glue, and strips of paper for each color of the rainbow. Flip it over to the front and glue on some cotton balls for the cloud if you want to get extra "fancy"! Such cute idea!
.
.
Draw a rainbow on a piece of paper and let your child find stickers of each color to put on their rainbow! Put one sticker of each color on the rainbow first to start as a guide for them. This is a great project to do when your sticker bin gets a little out of control with tons of sheets that only have a few stickers on each one!
Warning: This activity takes a long time to make and setup but look at this picture below... the time is worth it! For the bands of the rainbow, you will take strips of cardboard and hot glue them inside a shallow cardboard box. Don't forget to make an area for clouds. Click HERE to see a reel of Brittany assembling this box.
The coloring of the rice is a long process too but the great thing is that you can save it and use it over and over again for sensory play. Just store it in a ziplock bag or container. Here's how you make the rice: In a big plastic Ziploc bag, pour 1-2 cups of uncooked white rice. Repeat and make a bag for each color of the rainbow. Add a few drops of vinegar to each bag. You can just eye this but probably about 2 teaspoons or so. Add a few drops of food coloring in each bag. Close and seal each bag and shake vigorously until the rice all changes color. Kids love this part! Add more food coloring as needed. Once the rice has changed colors, open the bag back up and let it air dry overnight (or until dry). To speed this up you can pour the rice onto parchment paper and set it outside for a few hours. Once dry, you're ready to play!
.
.
Dot a rainbow with dot markers (linked
HERE), write in some numbers in order (leaving some out), and let your child fill in the missing numbers! You can adapt this to fit the needs of your child! Smaller numbers, bigger numbers, multiples of a number, letters, etc. You could even write the numbers on dot stickers and have your child stick them where they go instead of writing them if more support is needed. There are lots of ways to modify this activity to meet the needs of your child which is one reason why it's so great.
.
.
This digital download (linked
HERE) comes with 5 days of rainbow activities planned out for you... two activities each day, for a total of 10 activities. It also includes a supply list, printable play dough mat, and awesome play dough recipe. So fun and engaging for kids ages 2.5-5 years old.
We hope you enjoy these magical rainbow activities as much as we do! It's always so great when learning, art, and play can all be combined in projects we share with our children.
Disclaimer: Stay at Home Activity Mom is a member of several affiliate programs and may earn a commission from a purchase through an affiliate link click above. As an Amazon Associate and LTK Creator, Stay at Home Activity Mom earns from qualifying purchases.
