20+ Amazing Umbrella Activities for Your Little Ones

Umbrellas are a necessary accessory that offers us much-needed protection from the rain 🌧️ and sun ☀️ – our trusty shade providers from various weather conditions.

As a mother, I’m always on the search for ways to keep my kids occupied and entertained. As a result of my search for such fun things to do, I got the idea of using the umbrella as a theme for various activities that my son could enjoy.

If you’re curious about the various activities that can be done with umbrellas, you’re at the right place! 💯

Interesting Activities for Your Kids

These umbrella 🌂 activities incorporate various arts and crafts projects that are fun for kids to try and can keep them entertained at home.

In this blog post, I have included a list of umbrella activities that your kids can do and have a good time. 😊

Hold an Umbrella for Shade

I’m starting with something that is quite obvious – the reason umbrellas are actually made for! 

When you’re out with your kids during the rainy 🌧️ season or while the sun ⛅️ is out, you can arm yourselves with a trusty umbrella ☔️ to use as a shade – a protection from the weather.

This allows kids to learn how to use an umbrella and also try to control it without letting it fly away from their hands 🙌🏼. 

Fill Umbrella Coloring Sheets

My son loves filling coloring sheets, and it is one of his favorite pastimes as it is calming and meditative in nature.

You can print templates or draw umbrella outlines for your kids to color with their crayons 🖍️ or colored pencils ✏️ and design their umbrellas with patterns using their creativity and imagination. 

Fold Umbrella Origami Shapes

Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding that my son enjoys doing, and you can make your kids try folding shapes out of paper.

You can follow a step-by-step Origami tutorial to fold pieces of paper 📄 into beautifully crafted paper Origami umbrellas.

I would say that folding origami shapes is an enjoyable process, and it also helps kids improve their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

Bake Umbrella-Shaped Cookies

As my son would say – life is better with cookies! 🍪

You can follow a recipe to bake simple cookies your kids like – sugar cookies, butter cookies, or chocolate chip cookies. 

Then, with cookie cutters in the shape of an umbrella, cut the cookie dough or shape the freshly baked cookies 🍪 to create adorable and delicious treats that your kids will enjoy.

My son and I love spending time together baking 🧑🏽‍🍳 to make cookies in adorable umbrella shapes to indulge in. We enjoy baking sugar cookies and then decorating them with various colors of frosting.

Sing Along to Umbrella Nursery Rhymes and Songs

I would say that nursery rhymes and songs 🎵 are fun for kids to enjoy and have a good time. 

You can play a few nursery rhymes and songs on YouTube based on umbrellas and get your kids to listen to the lines, sing along, and groove to the rhythm and beats of the rhymes and the songs.

My kids personally love ‘Up, Up, Umbrella’ and ‘Do You Know the Umbrella Man?”

Do let me know in the comments 💬 if your kids have any favorite umbrella-related rhymes for others to discover for their kids to listen to! 

Play a Game of Umbrella Up, Umbrella Down

I recommend that you make your kids play a game of Umbrella Up, Umbrella Down, an umbrella-themed version of the popular kids’ game – Red Light 🔴, Green Light 🟢.

Steps to do:

• You can hold an umbrella to show the red and green signals 🚦, and make your kids run 🏃🏽‍♀️ in a straight line from one point of the room or garden to another to play this game.
• When the umbrella is up, it signals kids can go, and when the umbrella is down, it means kids have to stop ✋🏼 in their tracks. 
• The ones who don’t stop when the umbrella is down are out ❌ of the game, while the others continue.

This simple and fun game can be played both indoors and outdoors, and this is a great way for kids to improve their gross motor skills and their ability to focus and concentrate as they stop or go according to the umbrella ☂️ signals.

Have a Dance Session with Umbrellas

There’s nothing better than playing some songs and lively music and having a dance session, something my kids and I love doing together.

You can curate a playlist with your kids’ favorite songs and energetic and lively music to set the mood for the dance floor for your kids to dance 💃 🕺 their hearts out. 

For a fun twist, you can provide your kids an umbrella to hold as a prop and dance with, which is so much fun for them to try.

Make an Umbrella Collage Art with Magazines

Collage art is a simple art activity that can add a touch of color to the walls of your home.

Steps to do:

• On a sheet of paper, draw a large enough outline of an umbrella with the segments having enough space. 
• You can bring out your stash of old magazines, brochures, and picture books for the kids to make the collage with.
• Kids can cut or tear colorful pages into small pieces and glue them to the segments in the umbrella outline to complete their vibrant umbrella collage art.
• My son cut and sorted the magazine pieces according to colors so that each of the umbrella segments was in a different color, which your kids can try this collage idea, too.

Pro Tip:

We also made another version of this collage by drawing and cutting an umbrella outline on a piece of cardboard, and we then decorated it with the cut magazine pieces. 

Do an Umbrella Sorting Activity

My son did this activity with his preschool class on a day when every child had brought their umbrellas 🌂 to school due to the rain, and I heard that he and his classmates had a lot of fun.

The kids placed their umbrellas in the center of the class after the rainwater had dried from the umbrellas, and then they sorted the umbrellas based on their colors 🎨, sizes 📏, and types ⛱️.

You can also do this at home if you have a few umbrellas of your own, which you can combine with a few borrowed umbrellas from neighbors, family, and friends.

Make an Umbrella 3-D Birthday Cards

For my friend’s son’s birthday, my son and I wanted to make him a cool birthday card, and we stumbled upon this 3-D umbrella-themed birthday card that the birthday 🎂 boy really loved.

Steps to do:

• You can fold a thick sheet of colored paper into half to make the birthday card. 
• Then, cut a square from another rectangle strip of paper and accordion fold it, resembling a Japanese-style fan. 
• Glue the ends of the accordion fold to the two sides of the card, so when the card opens, the folded paper also opens to resemble an umbrella. 
• Kids can then draw the handle of the umbrella with a marker, decorate the empty parts of the card, and write an adorable happy birthday message to celebrate their loved ones.

Make Umbrellas with Cupcake Liners and Pipe Cleaners

My son loved doing this simple craft to make adorable mini umbrellas with a few leftover cupcake liners we had at hand after baking a batch of delicious cupcakes 🧁.

Steps to Do:

• You can take a colored piece of paper as the base and cut it into a shape and size of choice.
• Then, collect 2-3 cupcake liners or more – as many as you require in different patterns and colors and fold them into halves. 
• Take pipe cleaners of different colors, cut them into the desired size, and poke them into the middle of the folded cupcake liners to make the handles of the umbrellas.
• Now, to finish, glue the folded cupcake liners with the pipe cleaners on the colored piece of paper to make the simplest yet crafty umbrellas with a few items.

We made these cupcake liners and pipe cleaner umbrellas for many handmade goodies, like bookmarks 🔖, greeting cards 🎆, and decorated gift 🎁 wrappings.

Pro Tip:

You can let your kids get creative and draw extra effects, like raindrops💧, sun 🌞, clouds ☁️, birds 🦜, airplanes ✈️, etc., on the piece of paper. They can then glue the umbrellas for an artsy and creative touch.

Make Umbrella Outlines with Paper Plates

I recommend that you engage your kids with a fun umbrella-themed craft, which is done with paper plates 🍽️ that you might already have.

Steps to do:

• You can take a plain, white paper plate in a size of choice, depending on what your kids would love. 
• Then, draw an outline of an umbrella with segments and let kids use scissors to trace and cut along the umbrella outline on the paper plate.
• Kids can paint the segments of the umbrella paper plate outlines with their creativity and imagination and decorate them with glitter, paper cut-outs, and so on.
• They can cut the handle of the umbrella from a thick sheet of colored paper and glue it to the paper plate umbrella outlines.

Complete Umbrella Word Families

I recommend this umbrella-based activity to make learning about word families a simple and fun process for your kids.

Word 🔤 families are basically a group of words that share the same kinds of root words, sounds, features, and patterns with different prefixes and suffixes. 

Steps to do:

• You can draw an umbrella on a thick sheet of paper and raindrops on blue colored paper and cut them to make umbrella and raindrop-shaped paper outlines. 
• Then, write a root word from a word family on a sticky note and place it on the umbrella outlines.
• Kids can write down words belonging to the same word family as written on the sticky note on the raindrop paper outlines and place them under the umbrella to complete the word family.
• For example – the word family ‘-at’ would include words ending with -at, like cat, hat, mat, rat, and so on.

I would say that this grammar-related activity can aid kids in developing their vocabulary and learning new words.

Conclusion

These umbrella-themed activities were fun for my son to engage with. I’m happy to report that these kept him occupied as he tried the various activities, games 🎯, arts ✍🏼, and crafts ✂️ with excitement and enthusiasm. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this list of umbrella ☔️ activities and that you found some ideas for your kids to try.

Please let me know in the comments if you have any more umbrella activities to share or any questions for me to answer – I would love to hear from you! 😁