How To Make Raindrop Suncatchers

Raindrop Suncatchers

Rainy weather usually keeps most preschoolers indoors and most teachers looking for extra activities to include in their lesson plans. Learn how to make suncatchers for a great rainy day activity that both preschool teachers and students will love! Use this raindrop art activity to build fine motor skills and to create!

raindrop suncatchers fine motor for preschool

Develop Fine Motor Skills

Don’t those suncatchers make a beautiful window display? If your classroom doesn’t have large windows, they also look great displayed on a wall or bulletin board. Kids enjoy making these raindrops because they get to use a pencil sharpener (and teachers love that their crayons get new life by being sharpened!)

Peeling and sharpening crayons is a great way for kids to work their little fingers for excellent fine motor practice. By peeling off crayon paper and twisting the crayon in the sharpener, students are preparing their finger and hand muscles for strong pencil grip later.

raindrop fine motor activity

How To Make Suncatchers Art Activity

Supplies for this raindrop art project:

You can choose to have the blue crayons already gathered and peeled for the students, or you can allow the students to look through crayon boxes and pick their favorite shades of blue to use.

raindrop fine motor art

Once the crayons have been peeled, they are ready to be sharpened! This is probably the favorite part of any preschooler. It is quite satisfying for them to see how they can transform a blunt crayon to a point again! I had my kids sharpen the crayons right on top of a large sheet of waxed paper. As we sharpened, we spread the shavings around to take up space on the waxed paper.

raindrop fine motor art activity

We used a large sheet of waxed paper for my kids to work on together, but you may want to use smaller, individual pieces for each student.

After the shavings have been collected and spread evenly across the paper, cut another sheet of paper equal in size to lay on top of the shavings. Use an iron on the lowest setting to iron directly on top of the waxed paper and melt the crayon shavings. It only takes a quick swipe of the iron to do this. The wax immediately melts and cools rather quickly.

Teachers or students can then draw raindrop shapes on the paper and cut them out.

raindrop suncatcher fine motor

Use a hole puncher and embroidery floss to string them up in windows for display! These raindrop suncatchers look like wind chimes made of colored glass. Your preschoolers will love hanging and observing these in the windows.

BIO: Clarissa is a former elementary teacher and writer of the blog Munchkins and Moms. She loves to share creative preschool activities that are both playful and educational. Check out some of her popular posts such as Rainy Day Window Art, a perfect accompaniment to this activity! Don’t forget to follow her on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for more creative ideas!

More Weather and Rain Ideas—
Weather Theme Movement Game
Three Weather Art Activities
What’s the Weather? Dramatic Play Dress Up Center
Raindrop Plop: Make an Umbrella

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Follow my Weather Theme Pinterest Board for more great ideas!

2 thoughts on “How To Make Raindrop Suncatchers”

  1. What a great idea! I’m always looking for ways to strengthen those little hands. This will be perfect for my TK kiddos!

  2. I love this idea! My two little ones are missing out on their swimming lesson tomorrow as they have colds. This will be a great activity for them to do instead. Thank you for sharing. I suspect their big brothers will be wanting to join in, too!

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