How To Make Rainbow Batik With Kids

May 29, 2014 by Sherri Osborn Leave a Comment

If you’re looking for a rainy-day craft that’s messy in the best way and guaranteed to brighten your home, rainbow batik is the perfect project. This simple DIY batik technique uses supplies you already have around the house and gives your kids a chance to create artwork that looks just as vibrant as fabric you’d find in a market overseas.

Unlike traditional batik, which relies on hot wax and special dyes, this kid-friendly version is safe, easy, and completely adaptable. Whether you’re homeschooling, planning a weekend project, or just want to keep little hands busy after school, rainbow batik will bring out your child’s inner artist.

What is Batik?

Batik is an ancient fabric art technique where wax is applied to cloth in patterns or designs, then dyed to create striking, colorful effects. Once the wax is removed, the designs remain crisp and bold against the background colors.

For kids, we swap out wax and fabric for more accessible materials like glue, crayons, and washable paints. The results still mimic the bold, resist-style patterns of batik without the hazards.

When I found this project, I immediately went on a search around my home for a plain white anything I could try this with! Such a fun project to do with the family or even with a larger group of kids. All you need is some Elmer’s Gel Glue, some acrylic paint, and something to make a rainbow batik design on.

Learn how to make your own batik design using these directions and step-by-step pictures on Our Creative Day.

Variations to Try

Seasonal Batik: Try snowflakes in winter blues, flowers in spring pastels, or autumn leaves in warm oranges and browns.
Personalized Gifts: Create batik-style tote bags or pillowcases as DIY presents for grandparents.
Paper Batik: If you don’t have fabric handy, thick watercolor paper works as a substitute.

Rainbow batik is one of those rare crafts that looks impressive but is simple enough for even the youngest artists. Parents love it because it sparks creativity without needing expensive supplies, and kids love it because they can splash paint around and watch the patterns magically appear.

So next time your little ones are climbing the walls on a rainy afternoon, grab the glue, mix up some colors, and let them dive into a world of rainbow batik. Their finished masterpiece might just be fridge-worthy—or even frame-worthy.

Check out these Batik tye-dye kits we found on Amazon.

Have you read?

Resources for Learning about Squirrels

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

What is Batik?

Variations to Try

Have you read?

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