I want to dive right in and show you these amazing rainbows in a frame.
You could also call them rainbow collages or rainbow stained glass windows. In either case, this is a great art process that the children can explore completely on their own.
All that is needed to get started is…
- Colorful pieces of tissue paper or cellophane
- Cardboard frames
- Clear packing tape
Clear Packing Tape?
You may be wondering why I used clear packing tape instead of clear contact paper. It’s simple. Clear packing tape is stickier and easier for me to control. Back in the good old days, I would have used clear contact paper but over the years, I have found contact paper to not be so sticky anymore. Sooooo – my choice for children’s art processes now is always clear packing tape over contact paper. In fact, I LOVE using clear packing tape for tons of different kinds of processes in my classroom. I really need to write a post just about clear packing tape some day.
Process Art Rocks!
To be clear, the only reason I am calling these “Rainbow” frames is because we read a book about rainbows before the children made their rainbows. In the children’s minds, these are rainbows even if they don’t actually look like a rainbow. That is what I love about process art – the result is defined by the child instead of us grownups.
Making Choices
As you can easily see, the children chose the colors they wished to add to the sticky side of their window frame and then pressed them on. Some children used only one color. Some children used only pink and purple. But most of the children used a combination of all the colors. It was definitely their choice.
Along with making choices in color, the children also took their time to decide on how they wished to lay their pieces out. Some of the children made straight rows. Others made patterns. Others chose to just fill in the space with as many pieces they could fit and didn’t worry so much about the arrangement of the pieces.
Here are the Amazon affiliate links to supplies that are similar to what we used!
I’d love to hear your thoughts – leave your comment below!
Can you detail your prep? You mentioned using contact paper and packing tape together… how so? Btw, I totally agree with you about contact paper not being sticky anymore!
Thank you for asking-I agree that I’ll need a more detailed description of how you made the packing tape and cardboard frame set up?
I was curious about how you go about prepping the frames as well. Thanks for sharing so much wonderful knowledge!
I buy those cardboard science boards from the dollar tree. I cut them up with a box cutter to make the frames.
I layered one side of the frame with the clear tape to cover the frames. Leave the other side sticky so the children can add their shapes.
Inspiring and mind-blowing! I’m just wondering, if you have coloured the sellotape yourself, with felt pens.
No – I bought colorful cellophane from Amazon. That would be too much work to color it myself!! But perhaps the children could color it!
The rainbows are their own……………..wonderful, thought filled project that touches all aspects of Early Childhood Education. Lucky Children!
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Thank you for the tip on packaging tape. I had never thought of using it. Clear contact paper is also incredibly hard to find anymore. Does it come that wide or did you stick 2 pieces together? Always so appreciative of your ideas!
I layer the clear tape as needed to cover the frame.
At less than 2” in width, does that take seemingly forever to prep for this process art?! And considering you had to use a box cutter to make the frames too??! It seems like this is super heavy on prep time for a very short time of student engagement? They are pretty tho…
Yes – it is a bigger set up but since I have a small class of 10, it was doable for me:)
I love those rainbows. My gang is super in love with rainbows. They went through weeks of making rainbows every way they could think of. They didn’t think about doing it this way. I am excited to introduce this to my crew.
I love this idea. Just wondering, where did you get the cardboard frames?
I cut them out myself.
The tissue paper looks shiny where the kids are placing it on the tape. Is there something more than just placing the tissue paper pieces on top of the paint? I love how this is all just the process!
The colorful paper used in this example is cellophane – which is shiny but the process also works well with tissue paper and the children enjoy the process just the same.
So, when using clear packing tape instead of clear contact paper, are you layering the tape to make it as wide as the contact paper would be since the widest tape is only about 3 inches?
Yes – I layer the tape!
Beautiful, Deborah! Do you have several strips of the packing tape stretched across the frame, or is there some giant piece of tape in there?
It is several strips stretched across 🙂