Teacher Appreciation Gift Idea #2: "Thanks for Helping Me Grow" Hand Print Craft

This is one that my kindergarten son made for his teacher. It's a perfect for the younger child like preschool and kindergarten.

It's a simple hand print craft and he loved painting it for his teacher. They only stay little for so long, so let them finger paint and get those hand prints while they are still little.

Thanks for Helping Me Grow!

Hand Print Pineapple (Golden Anniversary Gift Idea)

My in-laws recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary earlier this year.  I wanted my kids to each be able to make them a gift on their own and this is what my kindergarten son made for them.

If you have been following my blog you understand that to my kids are pretty crafty from having me as their mom. He did most of the work for this on his own. I had him draw an oval shape on the yellow paper and cut it out then glue it onto the white paper. I made the lines with the glue and let him sprinkle on the glitter and tap it off. Then I helped him out by painting his hand green so he could press it in place for the top

I also did the glue for the word golden but he sprinkled on the gold glitter on it. He did the other writing himself to.

Handprint Plaque with Dinosaur Footprints

Hand print crafts are a fun way to remember just how little your child once was. I wanted to have something my son would want to hang on his wall other than a paper hand print craft, so I decided to use plaster of paris.

I bought heart shaped plaster plaque mold. They are pretty inexpensive. We may even reuse it for my daughter to make a plaque for her own room. If you don't want to buy a mold, you could use some kind of plastic tray or bowl (like a cool whip container) that is large enough to fit your child's hand print.

Make the plaster of paris as indicated on the package, then pour in to your mold. Tap the bottom of the mold to release any air pockets and even out the plaster. Allow to dry for a while because sticking in your hand. It's hard to say how long it will take because it depends upon the humidity in your area and how thick your mixture is. The thicker your mixture, the quicker it will set and dry.

I made holes in the top by cutting up a thin straw (like the kind you stir coffee with) and inserting them in the plaster.

Make a handprint when it can still be inserted the plaster and keeps it shape. If it doesn't turn out just tap the bottom and it will make the plaster settle again. Don't tap it once you have a hand print you are satisfied with.

I did it a bit early and so my handprint has the peaks in it, so I decided it was best to paint around once it was dry so that the size of the hand was obvious. I then painted my son's name and age on there. And since he is really in to dinosaurs, I let him dip the feet of 2 dinosaurs in acrylic paint and make prints around the edge.

Heart Tree Made with a Toilet Paper Tube

This was a fun way to reuse some toilet paper tubes before recycling them and create a fun Valentine project. You could go a paint arm and hand print, but we chose to have my son trace it out and cut it out.

I shaped the toilet paper tubes in to a heart shape and he used those to make prints of "leaves" all over his tree. This is certainly a last minute Valentine craft that only needs a few supplies to creat.

Hand Print Manger with Baby Jesus Craft Project

Every year my kids make a new ornaments for a variety of trees, including their grandparents, godparent, parents and their own little trees.

This is the one that my son made this year. He's getting close to growing out of doing hand print crafts, but I am going to do them while I can to keep remembering those little hands. It won't be long until they are big hands.

I even did this project as the craft project I did this month with his classroom and their ornaments were added to the Christmas tree that is for all the preschool classes and for the church congregation to see.

As you can see on the left, I drew a bunch of swaddled Baby Jesus'  that the kids cut out and colored.

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Pottery Ornament

This was actually last year's ornament that my kids made to give to grandparents and aunts and uncles. Each year they make a new ornament to give as part of their present to their grandparents and godparents and for our home as well. We are big on making homemade presents around here.

This year we have some other ornaments planned, and I have a scheduled blog post to share with you the one my son made this year. Although that post won't happen until December 18th, but you will still have time to use that idea if you like it. I will give you a hint, it is a hand print one again. He is still a preschooler so still has cute little hands. My daughter will be making a different ornament than her brother this year.

To make these ornaments, I did a drawing of each of the kids' hands and then I traced it out on to rolled out clay. I brought the kids back in to the studio with me when it was time to apply the glaze and I let them paint underglaze over them however they wanted and then we dipped them in clear glaze.

Their hands only stay little for so long. Who wouldn't want to keep a memento of this cute little hand and their handwriting on it as well. We just used permanent marker to have them write on their own names and the year,

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Pumpkin Craft

This is another fun hand print craft that I did with my preschooler. My only part in making this is I got out the supplies, I drew an oval in pencil for him to have an idea of where to paint and cut out some jack-o-lantern face pieces. He did all the painting, including the hand print leaves himself and glues on the pieces.

Now that I have shared 2 Halloween hand print crafts with you this month, you are all set to get started with projects with your kids in October (tomorrow!!)

Check back with me on Facebook in October and I will share with you FIVE HALLOWEEN HAND PRINT CRAFTS over at Northern Cheapskate and then at the end of October I may just have one last one to share with you in time for a last minute Halloween project.

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Bat Craft

I can't get over how cute this turned out!!! This is the start of some of our Halloween Hand Print Crafts. I am going to share a few with you here at Save Green Being Green and then next month I am going to share 5 more over at Northern Cheapskate.

My preschooler isn't going to be so little for too long, so I need to get those little hand prints now. This one was made my stamping the hand in opposite directions with the palms overlapping. Then he glued on a foam moon that I cut out and did some stamping of a star stamp we have with washable paint, but you could easily make a stamp like this for yourselves out of a potato or by cutting up a sponge.

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Mittens

These are fun, cute and provide a memento of the size of your child's hands for when they start to grow old too fast.

I let my kids do much of this on their own. For my son I did draw some mittens for him and them he cut them out, but for my daughter she drew her own mittens and did the entire project on her own. This was one of our winter "cold" no-school day projects.

Start out by having them draw and cut out mittens by using their own hand to draw around as you want to make sure their hand print will fit inside!

Then have them paint their hand and press it inside the mittens of the respective hand/mitten combinations.

This next step you have to wait until the paint dries, or you could do this step before the paint step and get it all done, but I did it afterwards. Just trace around the mitten with glue and sprinkle glitter all over. We also stapled a length of string to the mittens as well.

They don't make mittens that are attached like that anymore, but I do remember having a set like that when I was a kid. They were homemade, so maybe only mittens existed like that that were homemade.

Anyone else have a pair of mittens like that?

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Fish Painting

This was a Christmas present that my son made for his daddy to have to hang in the cabin. I painted the background on a 8x10 canvas and let him do the rest.

He started out by painting his hand (I let him pick out the colors of everything since this was his craft project and gift he was giving.)

Then he painted on a gold hook and then some brown sand/dirt on the bottom, and finally painted on a pink worm. When it was dry he glued on a pink googly eye (his choice.)

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Christmas Tree

I decided recently I would like to make some keepsake decorations that I will put up from year to year in a spot in my dining room. At Halloween we made this 16x20 sized picture of a hand print as well as a foot print. For Christmas, each child made their own 8x10 picture.

We had the neighbor girl over for a couple hours, so we had her make one to bring home to her parents as well. She was very proud of herself and kept telling me that her mommy was going to love it so much.

I painted the canvas of each of them and then let the kids to their own. I think it would have looked better if my 7 year old had a larger canvas, her hands are kind of large to make a Christmas tree on an 8x10 canvas. She also decided she wanted to paint garland on hers.

The little hands of my neighbor girl made a more compact tree. They used their fingers to make the ornaments and a star shaped sponge to put on the star (my daughter did her's without a stamp.)

I wanted "silver and gold decorations" (do I have you singing that song from Rudolph yet?)  so I painted the backgrounds different for each of my kids. My son thought his needed a pink star too.

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Turkey

My son and I had such a fun time with this Turkey project. He is becoming quite the little crafter. I tried to
maximize his learning with this project and so I made dotted lines for him to trace the letters in "Gobble" and had him tell me the letters as he wrote them.

I let him pick out the choice of colors for the feathers and tell me which finger to paint which color. I painted his hands and let him press them on the paper. I fondly remember doing this same project with my daughter when she was his age. In fact, I just saw the picture of when she did it when we had a playdate at our house and it gave me the idea to do it with my son too.

I let him draw on the legs and beak and glue on the googly eyes.

Try It Tuesday: Butterfly Life Cycle Hand Print Art

Time for another fun and easy project I did with my kids. We were on a butterfly theme which wouldn't be complete without a hand print butterfly. But we took it further and made finger print caterpillars and chrysalis's. I always like to do hand prints crafts because it can be a kind of keepsake, plus you can see which is done by my 7 year old and which is from the 3 year old based on the hand print size. My son had to make a pink and purple butterfly because right now pink is his favorite color (because it WAS sister's), which is why she chose to make her butterfly blue and green. LOL!

If you are looking for other butterfly life cycle crafts, then try out the Easy Paper Plate Butterfly Craft I shared last week or this Coffee Filter Butterfly Project. And don't forget to check out my Preschool at Home Theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is loaded with activities and art projects!

I started out having them paint the grass on the construction paper and then paint the tree. If you see my paint trays above, they are just styrofoam containers that held fruit that would have gone in the trash.

Next I had them make their finger print chrysalis followed by the fingerprint caterpillar. After I wiped their fingers clean, they switched colors (because who has ever saw a caterpillar that was the same color that it was when it turned in to a butterfly?) and painted the palms of their hands.

We glued in to place colored popsicle sticks for the butterfly bodies and used some glitter glue for antennas on the butterfly and caterpillar and of course we glued on some googly eyes on both the caterpillar and butterfly.

Try It Tuesday: Cardinal Bird Hand Print Craft

Well, a thunderstorm cancelled my son's nature camp this morning, so a project and some stories were in order to help fill his morning. I decided we would make this Cardinal Bird Hand print  craft.

Supplies needed: white paper, red and green washable paint, glue, brown paper bag, googly eyes & orange construction paper (or you could paint or color in a beak instead.)

Start by having your child re-purpose a brown paper bag by tearing it up in to small pieces that will be glued on to make the nest. Next help them paint their hands and have them place them on the paper.

Glue the brown paper pieces in the shape of a next underneath the birds. Glue on small triangle pieces of orange construction paper for a beak and glue on googly eyes.

Using a paint brush have the child paint the space above green for a tree.

Allow to dry and show off their creations! My son decided he wanted to make lots of birds, so he made one with 2 birds in a nest and another with 1 bird in a nest and 3 birds flying away.

Preschool Theme: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

What mom & child doesn't love The Very Hungry Caterpillar? We have a couple different versions of this book and it a favorite.

Kids are also fascinated to this introduction to metamorphosis and it would be a wonderful opportunity to purchase one of the InsectLore Live Butterfly kits; we have done them 3 years in a row and also raised monarchs.



Here is the list of Activities, Projects and Crafts we did:

• Handprint Caterpillar and Footprint Butterfly
• Make Playdough Caterpillars
• Caterpillar Balloon Painting
• ABC Letter Match Up
• Dot To Dot Caterpillar Sheet
• Letter C (trace & glue pom poms)
• Hungry Caterpillar Graph (from Ms Carlie's Little Learners)
• Very Hungry Caterpillar Coloring Sheet
• Read the Very Hungry Caterpillar (regular book and puppet book)
• Very Hungry Caterpillar Printables
•  Super Easy Butterfly Craft

What have you done to help your child learn about caterpillars?

Handprint & Footprint Reindeer

 This is a fun little activity if you (or your child) don't mind a little mess. It actually can be a non-messy  project if you make sure they don't touch anything on the way to the sink to clean up or carry them there after doing the footprint.

We used brown washable tempera paint and made 1 footprint for the face and 2 handprints for the antlers. Then he glued on googly eyes (we just love those!) and a pom pom for the nose (I gave him the choice of making Rudolph or a regular reindeer and he chose regular.)

25 Gifts of Christmas - Fingerprint Ornaments

Every year I have the kids make homemade(ish) ornaments with me to give to godparents and grandparents as gifts from them. These are the one that my son made (my daughter still needs to make hers, it's easier to get his projects done when he is still home with me.)

I did use acrylic paint so ensure that it would stay better on the ornament.

To make the 5 Little Snowmen I just painted his fingers and to do the reindeer I painted his thumb to make the heads and used a pinky print to make the noses. All other items I drew on with permanent markers.

And of course I wrote his name & the year on the bottom of each ornament.