Red, White and Blue Craft: Patriotic Suncatcher Stars

These patriotic suncatcher stars are a fun and easy red, white and blue craft that is perfect for the 4th of July or Memorial Day!

Red, White and Blue Suncatcher Stars. Science, art and fine motor activity for preschoolers!

These patriotic coffee filter stars were a big hit with my son. He doesn’t like to craft very much, but if you give him a dropper and paint, he will create for a very long time!

I like that this patriotic craft is so simple to make. You probably have most of the materials needed in your house already. I pulled this together very quickly, but the final result was awesome.

Materials Needed:

  • Coffee filters
  • Red and Blue watercolors (I used washable tempera paint and warm water, mixed together)
  • Two droppers or pipettes (smaller is better)

Make Coffee Filter Stars

1. Grab a stack of coffee filters and flatten them out a bit. I used about 12.

2. Draw a star on the top coffee filter with a pencil.

3. Cut the star out along with the whole stack of coffee filters underneath. This way you can cut out all the stars at once.

4. Line a craft tray or other work surface with wax paper. If you put paper or something like that underneath them, it will absorb the watercolors and your stars won’t be as bright and vibrant. Half way through the stars I moved the wax paper with the stars on top to the counter to dry and put down another sheet of wax paper down for the remaining stars.

5. Put out your paint and two droppers or pipettes.

Painting Patriotic Suncatcher Stars with Droppers

Evan used the droppers to squirt paint onto the coffee filter stars. He alternated between red and blue. Fortunately, the colors didn’t mix very often. It really only happened when he went overboard with the paint and it mixed together before absorbing into the coffee filter.

Use droppers to squirt paint onto coffee filter stars.

He loved watching the paint spread and absorb into the stars. It was a great hands-on lesson in absorption. When the colors mixed together, he was reminded that when blue and red are mixed together they make purple.

It was also excellent fine motor practice. All that work with the droppers really exercised his hand muscles!

Put red, white and blue coffee filter stars on the window with clear tape. Now you have beautiful suncatchers!

After the stars dried, I carefully removed them from the wax paper and taped them directly to the window. They look awesome! I think we are going to make even more this week. We may even give some to the grandparents for their windows!

Patriotic Suncatcher Stars craft for preschoolers. Science, art and fine motor activity!

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