Making a Sensory Rainbow with Straws

I found these colorful milkshake straws when I was grocery shopping and I had to have them. Since then, we have been using them for a number of activities such as this St. Patrick's Day Straw Activity. I had been thinking about using some of the colorful straws to make a rainbow, but haven't been too successful gluing straws onto paper in the past. When the glue would dry, the straws would just pop off. I got to thinking about how we could make a sensory rainbow by pushing the straws into shaving cream. By using the shaving cream as a base, the straws were able to stick and the kids got to enjoy a sensory activity by playing with the shaving cream when they were done.

Squirt some shaving cream into a tray and spread it around so the surface of the tray is covered. Provide your child with cut up milkshake straws in rainbow colors. You probably won't be able to find both blue and indigo straws. The colors we used for our rainbow were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

As one of my daughters started to construct her rainbow, she realized that she would need to angle the straws a bit to make them look like a rainbow and fit them on the tray. It was great to watch her as she figured out how to use the space.

Of course there are other fun things to do with colored straws in addition to making a rainbow.

My daughter noticed that as she made the inner colors of the rainbow she needed fewer straws than she did for the outer colors.

When the rainbows were done they could be carried and held up and the straws would not fall off. When we were done looking at our pretty rainbows we washed the straws and will use them again for another activity.

For more fun shaving cream play, check out:

Shaving Cream and Water Bead Cupcakes                      Sensory Sight Word Games