Weather Craft: Fruit Loops Rainbow

This craft is popular on the internet, but you don't have to make it as filled in for younger children, or you can make it more elaborate for older children. All the parents from our class loved this craft. It was cute, and we used the leftover FruitLoops and marshmallows for snacks. The rainbow helped teach our younger children about colors and how to match them. You can make it more difficult for older kids by not providing color lines, have them make a color wheel or necklace instead of just a rainbow.

This is an example one of the students made, almost entirely by herself :)

What You'll Need:

• A box of Fruit Loops (If you don't want to use the brand Fruit Loops, check the box of the off-brand to make sure you have all six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. You won't use all of these.)
• A bag of mini-marshmallows (You won't use all of these, either.)
• Liquid glue
• Half a sheet to a whole sheet of white construction paper or cardstock (it needs to be thicker and stronger than regular printer paper)
• Two bowls, one to hold Fruit Loops and one to hold marshmallows (this is optional, but it makes it easier for children to see the different colors and keeps them from putting their hands in the rest of the food in the package)
• Crayons or markers in the colors of the Fruit Loops
• Pencil or pen (to draw clouds for the marshmallows, optional)

How to Make It:

1. Pour the Fruit Loops and marshmallows into the bowls so the children can easily see the colors of the cereal and avoid touching the other food.
2. Use the pen or pencil to draw clouds, and the crayons or markers to draw out the lines of color for the children to follow with the Fruit Loops. The children can do this themselves, if they're old enough, or you can just give them the food to make the rainbow.
3. Give the child the glue, or place glue dots along the lines, and allow the children to pick out the colors that match the lines, and put them down. Then, use the glue to fill in the clouds, and have the child place the marshmallows inside, as many as they can fit.
4. Voila! A beautiful food rainbow! Though the children can't eat the rainbow they've just made, they can eat the leftovers :)

If you want to make a necklace, use string and poke holes in the marshmallows. The child can string the Fruit Loops in rainbow order, or any order they want, and put the marshmallows on either end. Or, to make it a longer craft, you can have the child put each color on a different string and tie the strings together at the end to form a layered necklace. Use your imagination, and let the kids use their imagination, too! You'll never know what they'll be able to come up with.

Weather Craft: A Rainy Day Picture

I haven't been keeping up with all of the different crafts during all of the different weeks. So I'm just going to post crafts that I remembered to take pictures of with a title saying what week they belong to. I'm trying as hard as I can to only post crafts I have pictures of, but I have a feeling that won't be possible for a whole lot longer, as college is soon approaching...

This craft is all about a rainy day with multiple components to keep your kids busy. It's a mixed media craft, so it takes a while to put everything together (perfect for a rainy day!), but it can be well worth it if a good effort is put in.

One of the results created by one of my two year old students :)

What You'll Need:

• A large piece of blue construction paper (a regular size piece can be used, but you may just have to cut down the coffee filter to fit the center of the page)
• Coffee filter
• Aluminum foil
• Scissors
• Poly-fill or cotton balls (Poly-fill is the fibrous material used in cheap pillows and to fill stuffed animals. I would recommend cotton balls because they're softer and easier to stick, but in this picture, we used Poly-fill)
• Liquid glue
• Markers and/or watercolor paints

How to Make It:

1. The first thing you'll want to do is cut raindrops out of the aluminum foil. You can easily free-hand this or trace a pattern on the aluminum foil, fold it up, and have your kids do it. It's easy to cut multiple at the same time. You can eyeball the size of the raindrops, but if you still need or want some guidance, I would say they need to each be about an inch to an inch and a half tall, and three-quarters of an inch to an inch thick, depending on how tall you made them.
2. Have the child color or paint the coffee filter as much as they want, and set it aside.
3. Pull apart the Poly-fill to make long cloud strands (you don't need to do this with cotton balls, but you can if you want). Glue the Poly-fill or cotton balls to the top of the large piece of blue construction paper for clouds.
4. Fold the coffee filter in half and glue it shut. Then, glue it to the center of the page. Draw underneath it the cane/stick part of the umbrella (underneath that, we wrote "A Rainy Day" and the child's name for parents. Labeling the picture "A Rainy Day" can't hurt, though. If you want, you can use another medium for the umbrella cane/stick, such as a straw, a twig, etc. Just be creative).
5. Glue on the raindrops falling from the clouds. I let the kids glue them on in any direction they want, but if you want accuracy, you can tell the kids which way they go. I just thought it was cool to teach them that raindrops fell from the clouds, and you should use an umbrella in the rain (lol).
6. Admire the finished product :)