Paper craft · Starter · about 20 minutes
Paper-Strip Rainbow
Uses scissors · Uses glue · Adult help suggested
- Rainbow strip template, printed, 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 in (Letter) or A4)
- Sheet of paper for the background, 279 x 216 mm (11 x 8.5 in (Letter) or A4)
- Blunt-tip scissors
- Glue stick
- Ruler (optional)
- Crayons, if you color the strips yourself
For the grown-up: Help with cutting the long, straight strips and the bumpy cloud edges. An adult can cut the pieces ahead of time for very young children.
Safety: Use blunt-tip scissors and cut away from your fingers.
Blue dashes: valley fold (toward you). Pink dash-dot: mountain fold (away from you). Thick line with scissors: cut. Yellow: glue.
-
Start. Print the template at 100% and lay it printed side up. Each strip is a little shorter than the one before.
-
1. Cut: Cut out the six strips and the two clouds on the solid lines.
-
2. Glue: Rub glue on one end of the red strip. Press that end on the page, left of the middle.
-
3. Glue: Bend the red strip up into an arch. Glue its other end down 10 cm (4 in) from the first end.
-
4. Glue: Glue the orange strip the same way, with its ends on top of the red ends. It makes a smaller arch inside.
-
5. Glue: Add the yellow, green, blue and purple strips the same way, each one inside the last.
-
6. Glue: Rub glue on the back of each cloud and press it over the glued ends. Your rainbow is ready!
If something goes wrong
- An arch flattens or tips over. Press each glued end flat for a few seconds, and keep all the ends in the same two spots.
- The arches cross each other. Glue them in order from the longest (red) to the shortest (purple), each one on top of the last.
- The rainbow is too flat. Glue the ends a little closer together so the strips bend up higher.