How to Make Sun-Catchers for Kids

How to make sun-catchers for kids is a fun activity that you can use to begin spring season lessons. Whether you use an introductory lesson or a quick activity, making these sun-catchers is sure to please little learners.

Besides, this sun-catcher craft is also a great opportunity to talk about sunlight, transparent and opaque materials, and even shapes. 

How to Make Sun-Catchers for Kids Crafts

While you can use stained glass and other materials for sun-catchers, they might not be suitable for young children. These activities use simple items that you might have in your classroom or homeschool group. 

Materials

• Construction paper (various colors)
• Transparent tape (like packaging tape)
• Tissue paper (various colors)
• FREE shape templates (see under the STEM ACTIVITIES section)
• Safety scissors
• Glue
• Pencil
• Masking tape
• Optional: hole punchers, ribbon, or yarn

Instructions

1. Print out the various shapes using the FREE shape templates. 
2. Cut the shapes templates. 
3. Use small pieces of masking tape to trace the shape templates to color construction paper. 
4. Cut the various shapes from construction paper. Set aside. 
5. Use transparent tape to adhere to the opening of the shape. 
6. Then, start adding pieces of tissue paper to the sticky side of the transparent tape. 
7. Trim the excess transparent tape from the sides. 
8. Use various colors of tissue paper for a fun effect. 
9. Or, cut a piece of tissue paper of the size of the shape opening. 
10. Crumble the tissue paper, if desired. 
11. Add glue to the sides of the shape. 
12. Gently place the tissue paper to the shape. Let it dry before trimming. 

Other fun ways that you can use these sun-catchers is to use different shapes as seen in the video. Besides cutting and pasting, other fine motor skills that young learners can practice are using various textures of paper such as crumbling the tissue paper. 

See the Complete Guide to Spring Crafts and Printables for more ideas, FREE printables, and tips to develop fun activities and lessons.

Video

The video shows more step-by-step instructions that you can use to make these sun-catchers. Fine motor skills are an integral part of creating crafts or hands-on activities.

Use scissors practice to cut the various shapes, tissue paper, or even strings. The video also shows you a cute bilingual story in English and Spanish to learn shapes. 

You can get the FREE copy of the bilingual story in the Stories section. 

Light in Sun-Catchers

Sun-catchers are wonderful optical objects that allow light to go through. There are many types of materials that may allow light transmission.

• Transparent materials allow all of the light to go through.
• Translucent materials allow most of the light to pass through, like tissue paper.
• Opaque materials do not allow light to pass through.

Originally, sun-catchers are made of crystals, stained glass, or beads that melt into specific positions. When you place sun-catchers in a sunny area or allow light to go through, sunlight either reflects or refracts at different angles. In this way, the light at different angles gives you various colors that you can see. 

Conclusion

How to make sun-catchers with tissue paper is a wonderful learning experience. You don’t have to have glass or beads that can be challenging objects for young learners to handle. And with tissue paper, you can still experiment with light and color.