DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Paper Strip Sunshine Craft

This is a simple cut and paste patterning craft that lets young children practice making a pattern while creating a nice rainy day sunshine to hang up on the fridge in the summer. It also goes nicely with sunshine themed songs like Mr.  Sun Song and You Are My Sunshine. 

We used two colors, but you can use more, if you like!

Materials:

• a printer,
• a piece of paper,
• scissors,
• glue,
   
• Optional:  patterned scrapbooking paper or construction paper

Instructions:

• Print out the sunshine template.
• Print out the paper strips template or (optional) instead of using the template you cut out your own strips of paper from scrapbooking paper or construction paper.  I like to just use construction paper or scrapbook paper -- it's quicker, easier and looks great but some children really like using scissors to cut along lines which the template provides.
• Set aside the sun template for now -- we won't be using it quite yet.
• Cut paper strips about an inch wide and 8 inches long from the paper strip template, from construction paper or from scrapbooking paper.
• Talk to the children about making patterns -- for example, one yellow, one orange, one yellow, one orange.  Ask them what kind of pattern they would like to make and have them lay out a few strips of their pattern on the table.  Some children will enjoy spending quite a bit of time playing with their patterns before they begin gluing pieces on.
• Turn the sun template UPSIDE DOWN, so the black lines are lying on the table.  You can still see them a little bit through the paper.
• Squeeze glue all over the backside of the paper if you tend to work quite fast or just put it on a section of the paper if you need a little more time.  You can squeeze it straight from the bottle or use a plastic cup with glue inside and a popsicle stick for applying it.
• Lay your paper strips on the paper, recreating your pattern.  You can put them on the paper horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
• Let dry.
• Once your glue is dry, flip the paper over so you can see the black lines.  Now carefully cut out your sunshine shape -- this is the best time for an adult to lend a hand.

Printable Craft Templates:

• After printing, close the template window to return to the main page.
• If the template doesn’t fit on one page, adjust your printer margins:
  • In most browsers: Print → More settings → Margins → Minimum
  • Or use Page Setup / Printer Setup in your printer dialog

 Sunhsine Template       (B&W)

 Paper Strip Template    (color)