My little kids always loved rainbows! What a perfect subject for the month of March, too, since we "celebrate" St. Patrick's Day. My toddler "Rainbow" busy box includes a cut-and-paste craft, color sorts, rainbow books, and other fun items related to rainbows!
My main activity for my toddler was a simple cut-and-paste rainbow color sort craft using paint chip squares and images in all colors of the rainbow. This is such a simple activity, but my daughter loved that she had "made a rainbow" all by herself.
To begin with, I had a pile of paint chip squares, so I used those to make an accordion book, held together simply with tape.
Then, I found some clipart of items of a variety of colors. You can have a search through a shop catalog or magazine for items of a variety of colors.
My girl enjoyed cutting out the items and gluing them on the correct page. This was a perfect small motor skills practice activity. There was no pressure to cut "on the line."
Picking up the paper and sorting it on to the correct square was also a perfect challenge for a young preschooler or older toddler. It takes good finger control in order to pinch paper. Glue is always fun.
The whole activity was just a great chance to try an activity by herself, from cutting to glue. And then she had a beautiful rainbow "accordion" book at the end of it!
Colored puff balls are such a fun soft manipulative for the little ones to play with. I love that, even if they are thrown, there is no harm done. Because they are so light, they don't go far either.
For this activity, I cut down some toilet paper tubes to three different heights: from 1 into to full sized. then I wrapped each tube in construction paper and labeled them with number stickers.
You could also use thicker colorful paper and do away with the toilet paper tubes all together!
Then, I include the correct number of puff balls in the busy box to allow for one to fit in the smallest, two in the next, 3 in the next, etc. the goal is for the correct number of puff balls to correlate to the color of the tube.
The first time we played with this, my toddler did not understand. The next time it came out, she figured it out and enjoyed it!
Here are the other activities that fit in her rainbow busy box. The items below link to Amazon, for which I am an affiliate.
See more rainbow and color products in my store!
You can also find these products at my TeachersPayTeachers store.
Counting to 10 Pot of God Activity Mats
Number 10 Bonds Rainbow
Color Matching Game and Center
Bright Color Pattern Cards
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