This fun, hands-on craft is a wonderful way for young children to explore colours, patterns and fine motor skills while creating their own colourful necklace and bracelet.
Children cut drinking straws into approximately 1-inch pieces and thread the pieces onto string. They can choose to create a repeating colour pattern such as red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, blue, or they can simply choose and arrange colours in any way they like. This makes the activity flexible enough to focus specifically on colour patterns or simply on recognising, naming and exploring different colours.
As children thread the straw pieces, they practise hand-eye coordination, concentration, pincer grip and fine motor control. Choosing and arranging the colours also encourages children to make decisions, recognise sequences and express their creativity.
The finished necklace and bracelet provide a lovely sense of achievement, as children can proudly wear something they have made themselves!
Skills developed:
• Colour recognition and vocabulary
• Creating and extending colour patterns
• Fine motor skills
• Hand-eye coordination
• Concentration and patience
• Creativity and decision-making
Perfect for: Kindergarten, preschool, ESL/EFL classrooms, colour lessons, pattern activities, fine motor practice and independent craft time.

Credits & Copyright
© 2026 Sonyja Murphy. All rights reserved.
This educational resource was created by Sonyja Murphy.
Illustrations in this resource were created with the assistance of AI (ChatGPT by OpenAI) and have been edited and arranged as part of this original educational work.