End of Year Preschool Craft Idea

I would do something with their handprints. Those are the crafts that I, as a Mom, cherish the most. I got paper flowers, made with his handprints, on green popsicle stems in a paper flower pot for mother's day. The teachers put a magnet on the back to it could go on the fridge.

We just did a fun and extremely easy one yesterday with our MOMs Club.

Chinese Spiral "windsock"
Take a piece of 8 1/2 by eleven cardstock or a paper plate. Color both sides of it with bright colors. Then tear all around the edge of the paper or the plate so you have a rough edge. Then start in the middle of the 11 inch side of the paper and tear a strip about an inch and a half or two inches wide up the side and across the top, down the other side and across the bottom. Keep tearing in a square keeping about an inch or two strip until you get to the middle. For the plate, just tear in a circle spiral all the way to the center. Then tape a piece of string to the center left over strip and hang it up. It will twirl around in the breeze really well! OK, so if you can't figure out my crazy directions, go here...

http://funkidscrafts.topnettips.com/documents/paperplatec...

There are lots of other ideas using cheap, fun and easy paper plates. Good luck and have fun...if you don't find anything else to do, feel free to shoot me an e-mail...I am always in charge of my 3 1/2 year-old's parties!

HI There.
Check out FamilyFun.com. It is an on line Disney magazine. They have a section for end of the year crafts for kids.
Have fun.
L.

Playdough is a great favourite.

1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp oil
food colouring
Mix all together in large saucepan. Cook 5 minutes on medium heat stirring constantly till it looks like playdough.
I save this in pre-made icing containers. This recipe just fits in one container.

Finger Painting - use thick poster paint and loads of newspaper to protect surfaces!

Water play - this needn't be a pool, but just bowls of multi-coloured water with bubbles - give them jugs, mugs and funnels to play with - definitely for outdoors!!

Cookie dough - make a pile - give them each a handful and let them cut out their own shapes with cookie cutters - bake them in the oven and let them have their own cookies back to ice once cool.

Scrap Books - cut out loads of pictures and give them each a pile with some glue to stick into their own scrap books or alternately, to form a collage to take home to mum.

I am a montessori pre-school teacher and the end of the yea rproject I made was a autograph book for each child. I stapled cardstock to plain white typing paper and had stickers, glue and markers and other caty items to decorate the cover and then each child wrote theri name if possible in my 3's only 6/8 can write their name but anyways each child has a page to decorate, this way the child has a keep dake to look back on; and some kids the 4 &5's even wrote their phone number so the friend could call over the summer. I too had a page and wrote a little note of a special memory I had with that child that year. The kids loved it and the mommy's thought it was great!
IF you just want fun have each child bring t-shirt and have them decorate with fabric crayons, the kids in my class also liked doing this.

How about decorating a bank. You can usually find those plastic piggy banks and the kiddoes could glue stuff to them. You can request donations of leftover stuff such as ric rac, sequins, glitter, etc. etc. etc. from class parents. Of course they could also just paint on them but the paint will flake after a short while.

Hallo

This might be a bit much but how about buying the foam picture frames and having the kids decorate them, either with pens or stick on stuff, jewels, stickers and finding a mum with an instamatic camera. Once they have finished their frame, a mum takes an instant photo of the child, puts it in the frame. The kids love to watch them expose. Encourage best friends to take photos together. The end project is a framed photo of themselves - they love it and it's a nice memory for the end of school.

All the best
A.

Use that colored styrofoam (paper). Trace their handprints back to back and cut out. Use a pipe cleaner for the antennae and a hole punch to put holes in the bottom of the prints for ribbons or streamers. Makes a great wind catcher. (the glitter paper makes them really pretty)

My personal favorite is the handprint t-shirt. You use just a plain white undershirt one for every child in the class. Then have each child paint their hand with like an acrylic paint, you can use more than one color if you want. Have the child leave their hand print on everyshirt and you can go behind them and write their name with a sharpie on, under, over, or on the side of their handprint. You can also put the the school name and the year on the shirt with puff paint, or with the sharpie. It's a cute way to remember preschool. *I would use a piece of cardboard inside the shirt so the sharpie doesn't bleed through.

foam picture frames and decorations can be purchased at Hobby Lobby. You can then take photos of the class, and each child can decorate their own frame so they can have a picture of their class.

Autograph t-shirts. Cheap solid colored tees can be purchased at Hobby Lobby, also, and the kids can decorate with fabric paint, or special fabric markers.

My 4 year old son's class just made "toad abodes" a small clay flower pot, with a round wooden knob guled to one rim creates a little house for froggies when placed in the garden. Our teacher hot glued the round knobs on ahead of time, and the kids decorated with foam stickers and paint markers.

Depending how adventurous and daring and crazy you are (!), Paint bottom of child's foot one color and press onto heavy paper - then paint each of their hands another color and press alongside the foot print to make an adorable butterfly keepsake
add name and date and it's a keeper!
M. F - helps if there are baby wipes handy and other helpers!

You could always do the tried and true "painted handprints on the white t-shirt". Each child brings a cheap white t-shirt and they put their painted handprints on every shirt. The teacher can paint their name by their handprints and then each child takes home a shirt with all of their friend's handprints on them. It can be messy, but they usually love the outcome. Good luck!

Hi S. - I was the director for a preschool for 6 years and the teachers had some really great craft ideas over that period of time. For that age group, it's important to remember that the craft doesn't always have to be something that's going home and hanging on the fridge. The kids loved doing crafts that involved food. The great thing about it is that if they eat the glue (normally icing or peanut butter), its not a problem. You will need to check with the teacher about food allergies. Here are some ideas:

- Ants on a log (pretzel rods, icing or peanut butter, raisins)
- Finger painting with pudding (add food coloring to pudding and let them go crazy on wax paper)
- English Muffin Faces (cut an english muffin in half, spread with cheese - cheez whiz is now in a spreadable squeeze container, variety of veggies - ex. red peppers for the smile, cut baby carrots for the eyes). This is a great way to get them to try new things. I was skeptical at first, but all of the kids enjoyed eating their nutritious creations.

The main thing to remember is that the craft is meant for them to enjoy while their doing it, not the final product.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

K. (mom of 2)

i think a clay mold of there hand ,so mom can rember the yr her 3 yr old was in nursery school ,the weather is nice so it can be done outside ,or a outline of there bodys ,and let them color them self ,you can go to your local newspaper and get what they call end rolls of paper and use that for there bodys ,good luck have fun
L.

It really depends on the budget, but my son (who is also 3) loves to paint and use glue (and if it sparkles...even better)! I would think a frame (either out of popscicle sticks or precut foam pieces) would be good. You could have them decorate it, take digital pictures of the kids and print them off at Wal-Mart for very little money, assemble the frames with a magnet on the back so that it can be put on the fridge. Another idea would be to get inexpensive pillow cases and fabric paints...let the kids go to town and they now have their own 'special' pillowcase. I've also bought pre-cut bookmarks (cardstock paper in the craft section), cheap shaving cream and food coloring (very inexpensive craft). You spray some shaving cream in a paper plate, place a drop of food coloring on the shaving cream (can use one color or multi) and swirl with a toothpick. Then, take your bookmark and lay it on the shaving cream, pull it out and wipe with a paper towel. The results resemble tie-dyed. Then, add stickers, stamps and some decorative ribbon at the top. You could even take the kid's pictures and print them off (they have a lot of small print sizes now...even down to charm size) and place the kid's picture on the bookmark...add the kid's name and date. If you go to OrientalExpress.Com, there are also a lot of 'kits' available that can be shipped overnight. Hope these ideas help. You might also check HGTV's website for ideas.

Hi S., I am a Preschool teacher, my name is J.. I recently came across an awesome craft that I did with my kids at our Valentine's celebration. I got foam picture frames and decorations, then I let the kids decorate their own frames. I took polaroids of the kids while they were celebrating, and then put their picture in their frame with a magnet on the back. Super easy, super fun, and not that big of a mess!
hope this helps!