Holiday Crafts for Kids- Rainbow Place Mat

I remember weaving place mats as being one of those holiday crafts for kids that I did often when I was little. In preschool and early elementary school I must have made one for every major holiday. My teachers must have known it was a great fine motor activity! Maybe they just like to have us weave mats!

A rainbow woven place mat seemed like the perfect craft for St. Patrick’s Day! After all leprechauns are said to have hidden their gold at the end of rainbows.

This woven rainbow mat displays the colors of the rainbow in order. I think that that makes this craft one that could be done as part of a weather or spring unit too. Just laminate the place mat or cover it with contact paper and it would be a great at any holiday feast.

We started by following a piece of white construction paper in half. Then slats were cut up from the fold to about about an inch and half away from the top of the paper. If you are worried about cutting to close too the top you can fold the top section down about an inch half. Then you can cut up to the folded down area. (You can see the folds in our holiday crafts for kids mat at the top and the bottom.) This will be the warp of the weaving.

A stack of the construction paper arranged in the colors of the rainbow was cut into one inch strips. It was important to try to keep all the strips the same width. If that isn’t important to you, you can just have your children cut out long strips out the colors of construction paper found in a rainbow. You could have one or two children be in charge of each color! You could pre-cut all the strips using a paper cutter, if you don’t have time to have your children cut them out. ( That would insure that you have nice straight strips of paper.)

With the strips and place mat paper cut out, it then time to weave. The colored strips will be the weft of weaving. (I think children love to learn new words. I thought warp and weft would be fun for them to know.) The children will alternate weaving the strips over and under that slats cut in the white construction paper. Little daps of glue or swipes of a glue stick are placed on the ends of each of the strips to hold them in place.

This rainbow mat would be a great center activity or maybe it would be one of those holiday crafts for kids that would be done as whole group.