Take these DIY color viewers outdoors for a fun color activity! Kids can look through them and watch snow and clouds magically change colors. They look adorable hanging from a tree and and the color reflections are beautiful against the snow. Preschoolers will love learning their colors in this fun and hands-on way!
This is a great way to get outdoors with kids in the winter or anytime of year! If you don’t have snow on the ground, you can also use them to do some colorful cloud gazing! We’ve also hung them in our window for a fun indoor activity on those days that it’s too cold to get outside.
These are really easy to make! Here’s what you’ll need…
Supplies:
- Paper plates– You want thin paper plates so they are easy to cut.
- Colored Cellophane
- Scissors
- Tape
- Hot Glue or Elmers– Depending up how thick your plates are.
- Hole Puncher
- Twine
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Here’s How to Make Them
Step 1:
Cut a circle in 2 paper plates at the same time. You will frame the cellophane with the plates, so you what the circle cut lines to be the same for each “frame.”
Step 2:
Cut the cellophane into circles so they fit in the paper plate frame. I doubled up the cellophane to create more vibrant color refections.
A couple things that aren’t picture here:
- Tape the cut lines on the plate.
- Tape the cellophane to the plate at this point too.
Step 3:
Glue the paper plates together to make a frame. I would suggest using hot glue for this, but Elmer’s glue did work for the most part. We had a couple of plates that seemed thicker than the rest, so we used hot glue for those.
Step 4:
This is what it will look like when completed. At this point, paper punch the paper plate and tie it up with twine.
Now for the fun!
You want to make sure to hang these color viewers on a sunny day if you want to see reflections on the snow! I tried a few different areas in my yard until I found this perfect spot. I would also suggest hanging these on a calm day. It was pretty windy, so the twine got tangled a few times which was a little frustrating.
Leo loved looking at the colorful reflections in the snow! He liked calling out the colors and hopping on the reflections one by one.
Leo liked running through the plates too! It was also fun watching the plates move and the colors mix after he ran through them!
But most of all, he had fun looking through the plates and seeing the world through a colorful lens!
I even took pictures of him looking through the viewers. He got a kick out of that and loved seeing his face change different colors! We had so much fun playing with these color viewers and I hope you do too!
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I hope you give this activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.
∼Tara
