DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Umbrella Paper Strip Pattern Craft

This is a very fun and surprisingly simple project, which is great to suit a spring or rainy day theme. It is also a great way for children to learn different crafting skills: cutting out the paper strips is an easy way to practice scissor skills and making the rain drops is a great way to get used to glue.

Best of all, children can get as creative as they want with their umbrella's paper strips. Children can follow a simple A B A B pattern if they want. Older kids can try using several colours or creating a more complicated pattern. The colourful patterns make this spring craft a lot of fun!

Materials:

• children's scissors.
• construction paper -- you can prechoose the color or let the kids pick their own
• glue,
• paper and printer,
• pipe cleaner,
• OPTIONAL: school glue, blue paint, or glitter glue

Instructions:

• Cut out several strips of paper out of different colour paper. Cut the strips about 1/2 - 1 inch wide. (They don't have to be perfect, and I even prefer when the paper strips are more unique)
• TIP: Show the child how to hold and safely use their scissors.
• TIP: Make sure to supervise the children while they are using scissors, especially if they are new to scissor practice.

• Print out the umbrella template.
• Turn the template over so that the blank side of the paper is facing upwards. Glue the paper strips onto the paper in a pattern.
• Turn the template paper back over so you can see the lines of the template. Cut out the fabric part of the umbrella (don't worry about the handle and the knob at the top).
• On a separate piece of blue construction paper, glue a pipe cleaner onto the center of the paper. (You can curl the bottom part of the pipecleaner to make it look more like an umbrella handle.)
• TIP: Using a hot glue gun is easier, so an adult can do this part. If the child wants to do this part they can use school glue; just let the pipe cleaner dry onto the paper for about half an hour afterwards.
• Glue the paper strip umbrella cover onto the blue paper so that most of the pipe cleaner goes out the bottom and a little knob stick out the top. (It should like similar to the shape of the template.)
• OPTIONAL: Once the umbrella pieces are dry, take a little bit of school glue, blue paint, or glitter glue and make little drops all over the paper. It should look like rain!

Craft Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Umbrella Template     B&W

Printable version of these instructions