St. Patrick's Day Handprint Rainbow with Bible Story Extension

Complete your St. Patrick's Day celebration with a handprint rainbow, just like the craft featured on Rockabye Butterfly! With just a roll of white paper, a little paint, and a few willing hands, you can have a colorful classroom wall display in no time.

Handprint Rainbow

Start with a section of white bulletin board paper, cut to size based on your display requirements (you may want to tape the paper to the floor with masking tape to prevent moving around during painting). Then lightly trace the rainbow arcs onto the paper so your kiddos have a template for their hands (be sure to erase the lines when the painting is complete and dry).

Before you start painting, review the colors of the rainbow with your class. Then assign each child a color and let the handprinting begin!

Handprint Rainbow Craft for St. Patrick's Day — Photo Source: Rockabye Butterfly

Once the paint is dry, cut out the rainbow and adhere to your classroom wall or bulletin board for a colorful St. Patrick's Day display. A cute addition would be to add a cloud to one end of the rainbow and a pot of gold to the other end! You could easily find the clip art online to trace the cloud onto white paper and the pot onto black paper using your classroom projector. Then add a little cotton to the cloud for a 3-D effect, a few gold coins (yellow contruction paper circles) to the pot and voila! Your rainbow is complete!

Bible Story Extension

After completing the rainbow craft with your kiddos, read them the story of Noah and talk about the true meaning of the rainbow - God's promise that he will never flood the earth again:

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.” Genesis 9: 12-17

Rainbow Craft for Noah's Ark Study — Photo Source: Rockabye Butterfly

Have each child create their very own ark! They will need blue construction paper, brown construction paper cut into 3 pieces (the top, middle and bottom of the ark), white paper they can use to draw their rainbow, markers and plenty of animal stickers. Depending on the age of your students, you may want to have the rainbow pattern already drawn and cut out so all they have to do is color it in. And, finally, have the bible verse pre-printed onto white paper so they can glue it underneath their rainbows to complete the picture.

Be sure to stop by Rockabye Butterfly soon to check out all of the great ideas!!