April Showers Paper Umbrellas

April showers bring May flowers is what they say. I’m hoping so, because we have seen so much rain, and even snow this April and I’m getting cabin fever. Maybe it’ll be worth it when those beautiful spring flowers I love pop their heads up this next month.

While we were inside waiting for spring to, well, spring, my son and I decided to celebrate the weather by trying our hand at making paper umbrellas. He’s recently learned the accordion-fold, and just loves to fold any and every piece of paper he finds. When he folded one of his masterpieces in half, we both realized it looked like an umbrella, and voila! A new craft was born.

And now we are drowning in paper umbrellas. Many of them don’t have the little hook on the bottom, since Alex hasn’t figured out how to cut one out yet, but instead of folding all his pieces of paper into accordions, he makes umbrellas. So I can definitely vouch for the preschool love for this activity.

Paper Umbrellas, Step-by-Step

You can start with almost any size paper, as long as it is rectangular. The one above is 6″x7″.

Go ahead and let your little one decorate the paper any way they’d like. As a design note, if you want a line to go across the bottom of the umbrella, like in the yellow one, you need to make your line on both short sides of the paper, like in the above picture.

When the little has exhausted the decorating step, you’ll fold the paper accordion style, starting on the long end. You can make the folds large or small – I personally like them to be about 1/2″. It also doesn’t matter if you end on an up or a down fold. The umbrella works either way!

Once you’ve completely folded the paper, fold the entire thing in half. You’ll want to try to get the ends to line up. Then, use your glue stick to glue the inside edges together.