Our church is in the process of adopting a new workshop-model curriculum for our Children’s Ministry. Several of us traveled to a training a few hours away on Saturday at the church who originally wrote the curriculum we will be adopting. While there, I stumbled upon an adorable rainbow craft (for the story of Noah) that was made by simply putting some beads in the oven. I knew I wanted to try it out when we got back home…and adding a little magnet tape on the back transformed it into a super-cute Melted Bead Rainbow Magnet!
A word of warning: This activity is probably appropriate for school-aged children or maybe preschoolers with exceptional fine motor ability. Arranging the small beads without a guide was definitely challenging!
Here’s what you’ll need: plastic beads, small aluminum pan, an oven, and magnet tape. We received the pony beads and magnet tape compliments of CraftProjectIdeas.com. We only had the solid pony beads, but I think it turns out even prettier if you use translucent beads.
1. Gather your materials.
2. Sort the beads according to color. Little Brother helped us out with this part. :)
3. Begin arranging the beads in the aluminum tin.
Ready to go!
4. Put them in the oven. Make sure to keep a very close eye on them while they’re in there. I had to experiment a little bit with the temperature. I started with the oven at 350 degrees, but had to eventually turn it up to 400 degrees because we had to leave the house in a hurry. It might have taken 10 minutes at 400 degrees to melt the beads completely. Your kitchen will smell like lovely burnt plastic. :)
5. Let the rainbow cool completely.
6. Pop it out of the aluminum tin (it should come out easily once it is fully-cooled) and stick a piece of magnet tape on the back!
Be sure to check out our other great rainbow activities.
I love this process and idea! Going to pick up a set of beads this week!!
be sure you ventilate the kitchen when you are melting those beads. breathing those fumes just cannot be good for ya.
uhm did you not have issues with fumes? it looks very simple and the result is beautiful but I don’t know that I want to teach my kids to try melting plastic.
Looks great but I would be very concerned about the toxins released when the plastic melts — you don’t want to breathe that stuff in.
I use an old toaster over ourside….in garage or back deck. I did it once in the house, and didn’t find
the fumes to be that bad….but did open a window.