Rainbow Hands

Here's a great art lesson to teach color and color theory for kids ages 2 through 6. It is a super fun activity for kids anytime of the year, who doesn't love a rainbow?
Materials you will need:

containers for mixing paint in

-Finger Paint
-Drawing Paper (I prefer not to use finger paint paper for this project because it's a little too slippery.  Regular drawing paper is just perfect because it has a little texture which is great for applying the hand prints and little hands don't slide as much.)
-Spoons or Paint Brushes
-Mixing Trays/Plates/Bowls
-Glue Stick
-Newspaper
-1 Piece of Constructions Paper (any color 12 x 18)
-Cotton Balls (4 to 6)


Begin by putting your finger paint in the trays.  Place a dab of each of your primary colors in a tray.  These three would be red, blue, and yellow.  To create your secondary colors, place a tray between each of your two primary colors. This helps the children to visualize the color relationship and see the colors side by side before they begin to stir the paint.

After explaining which two colors make the third color when mixed together, have your child mix them with a spoon or paint brush.

Line up all of your containers in a row in the rainbow order.

Now that you have this, it's time to make the hand prints.  I have tested both of these two ways.  First, I put Lily's hand directly into the finger paints.  This left too much finger paint on the paper and the hand print was not very clear.  The second and best way I found to make the hand print was to take either a foam brush or regular paint brush and paint the finger paint directly to your child's hand.  To ensure that your child's hand makes it to the area of paper you are aiming for, use the hand over hand method. Do this for each of the six colors, washing hands after each color has been used.

Let the finger paint hand prints dry.  If you want to speed up this process, you can use a hair dryer.  Cut each hand print out.  Next, glue each hand print in order of the rainbow with a glue stick.Cut out two clouds, one for each of the sides of the rainbow.  Glue these down too.  Put a couple of books on top of the project and let it sit for a couple of minutes.  This will prevent the edges of the hand prints or clouds from peeling up.
After everything has dried, and been flattened, have your kids glue the cotton balls on top of the clouds.

Now, you have made a fabulous looking rainbow and a keepsake project for your scrapbook while explaining to your kiddos how the 3 primary colors (red, yellow, &blue) make all the other colors in the rainbow.

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Many Thanks,
Melanie