Rainbow Stained Glass Window Craft for Kids

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Brighten up your home and your child’s day with this colorful and simple rainbow stained glass window craft! It’s not only a beautiful decoration but also a wonderful hands-on learning activity. This fun, low-mess craft is perfect for preschoolers, kindergartners, and early elementary kids, offering opportunities for fine motor practice, color recognition, and creative expression.

Materials Needed:

Colored tissue paper (multiple colors)
Clear contact paper
Masking tape or painter’s tape
Scissors
Window with natural light

How to Make a Rainbow Stained Glass Window:

1. Prep the Tissue Paper
Cut various colors of tissue paper into small pieces. The pieces don’t need to be uniform—irregular shapes actually make the finished window more beautiful! Let your child do the cutting for great fine motor skill development and scissor practice.

Tip: You can save leftover tissue scraps for other art projects like this Stained Glass Art Project for Kids.

2. Hang the Contact Paper
Peel off the backing and stick the contact paper to a sunny window with the sticky side facing out. Secure the corners and edges using masking or painter’s tape.

3. Create the “Glass” Design
Invite your child to stick the tissue paper pieces all over the contact paper. They can go random or follow a rainbow pattern! Encourage creativity—this is a great opportunity to talk about color theory, patterns, and sequencing.

Rainbow Stained Glass Window craft with kids

4. Fill the Entire Surface
Make sure every sticky part is covered with tissue paper. Add more paper as needed until the whole surface is filled with color.

5. Admire the Artwork
Stand back and admire your new suncatcher-style window art! When the sun shines through, it lights up the tissue paper for a vibrant stained glass effect.

Educational Benefits

This rainbow window craft is more than just a pretty project. Kids will develop:

Fine motor skills from cutting and placing tissue pieces
Color recognition and mixing
Patterning and sequencing skills if following a rainbow order
Sensory input through the tactile nature of contact paper
Creative confidence as they see their design come to life

It’s a perfect fit for preschool units on rainbows, springtime, or light and color!

Extension Ideas

Try making seasonal versions with red and green for Christmas, or pastels for Easter.
Create shapes like hearts, butterflies, or even letters using paper templates under the contact paper.
Use black construction paper strips to make a stained glass “frame.”

See More Fun Crafts and Activities from My Site:

Rainbow Tie-Dye Suncatchers Craft

Glue and Salt Spiderweb Craft
Sour Patch Kid Edible Rainbow Slime
Paper Bag Book Craft

Check out this cute Torn Paper Rainbow Craft from my friend at Rock Your Homeschool!

7 Comments

LOVE IT!

Great fun and good for these hot summer days! Carolyn

Lovely project and good for being inside part of these hot summer days! Carolyn

This came out SO beautifully! We love this project, but have never gotten it to look quite this stunning! I shared with my Facebook readers here: https://www.facebook.com/LivingLifeIntentionally

Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Looking forward to seeing you again this Friday,
Beth =)

I like this project, so nice and easy. We are going to try this one!
Thanks for sharing,
Tonya

Oooh beautiful! We have yellow, orange and red tissue paper suns in our window at the moment (since there is no actual sun here in London!)

Thanks for stopping by The Sunday Showcase – hope to see you there again this week!

Charlotte
makedoandfriend.com

I like how they make it right on the window. We’ve made suncatchers using this method but we usually make them on the table and then I hang them up. I think it adds something to the project to allow them to make the stained glass right on the glass and see how it is going to look.