Get crafty with the DUCK Lab! Each Friday, trained research assistants from the UNCG Psychology Department’s DUCK Lab will guide at-home crafts for children ages 3 to 12. Parents can join too to learn fun facts about crafts that foster age-appropriate skills or learn about the DUCK Lab’s nonprofit child development research projects.
This Friday, the DUCK Lab invites all school-age friends to join Levi and make some rainbow streamers! Follow along as Levi takes you through each step and see how you can find some fun during a rainy day with a rainbow craft!
Parents, did you know?
This craft offers an opportunity for children to practice causal reasoning, which involves thinking about causes and effects. Read on below for more info. about the connection between these types of activities and age-appropriate developmental milestones.
We also invite you to check out our child development research opportunities, which are now modified for the virtual world! Please click here to learn more or sign up to participate with us.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
Supplies:
Construction paper (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
Half of a paper plate
15 cotton balls
Glue dots
Scissors
Directions:
Use glue dots to attach your cotton balls to the front of your paper plate.
Then, use scissors to cut out a strip of each color from the construction paper.
Glue the construction paper strips on the back of the flat side of your paper plate using the glue dots. Make sure the strips are in the order of a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).
The DUCK Lab: Rainbow Streamers
Relation to Developmental Science:
This is the perfect opportunity for parents to talk with their children about science, such as why the colors of the rainbow occur in a specific order or why they occur after a rainstorm. Around middle childhood, children engage in more sophisticated casual reasoning (because A causes B and B causes C, then A causes C) than younger children, which allows them to understand how colors are formed and perceived in a specific way. For example, parents can say the following: “Did you know rainbows form when sunlight passes through water droplets? That’s why we see rainbows when the sun comes out after a storm during the day, but not at night.” or “The colors of the rainbow always occur in the same order. Red and yellow make orange when mixed, which is why the first three colors of the rainbow are in the order red, orange, and yellow!” Parents can also talk about art, including how red, yellow, and blue are primary colors, while orange, green, and purple are secondary colors. Further discussion could focus on how the primary colors interact and mix to form secondary colors.
*Great for children in middle childhood, but fun for older kids too!
The DUCK Lab is a partner in the nonprofit Child Development Research Center in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They conduct studies of social and cognitive development with 2- to 12- year-olds. Families who participate in their research studies are volunteers in the Greensboro community who generously offer their time to help support research and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.