Self Portrait
Have each child create a self portrait. Then put it away with the date
on it
and send it home the last day of school with a portrait they make
that day.
It is really a neat way to see how far they have come!
Cutting & Pasting
Emphasize the safe use of
scissors. Let the children cut pictures out
of magazines and paste them onto construction paper. Use the
opportunity to observe the children's cutting skills.
First-Day Necklaces
On the first day of school, assess your youngsters' color-recognition
and listening skills
in this activity disguised as an art project. Give
each child a glue stick and a strip of
construction paper in each of the
basic colors. Strip-by-strip, step-by-step, tell
youngsters how to make
paper chains. As they work, make mental notes of students'
color-recognition and listening abilities. When all the strips have been
used, connect the
ends of each students chain using a strip on which
you've written "I was a good listening"
or "I've had a good day." As
students head home wearing their first-day necklaces,
you'll head back
to your lesson plans with a little more information to go on.
Back To School Name
Bracelets
Materials Needed:
Large Beads with letters
Elastic stretch threads
Pinch paper clips
Muffin tin paper cup
Markers
Directions:
Have the children pick out the letters to their name and place in the paper
cup.
Help the children attach a pinch paper clip to one end of their bracelet
string
as a holder. children may need assistance in threading the letter
beads on
the string in the correct order, holding the free end up so the beads do
not fall
off of the string. Once the letters have been threaded, the paper clip
can be removed and the ends tied together to form a bracelet.
Tote Bag
Buy a plain canvas tote bag
with a handle. Cut some apples, potatoes, onions or kitchen
sponges into various shapes. Pour some fabric paint into aluminum pie
tins, or sturdy paper
plates. Dip your "utensils" into the paint and create some
"Back-to-School" art on your
tote bag! When it dries it will make a great bag to use for carrying books
and lunches!
Book Covers
Using the utensils and
paint above, make designs on brown postal wrapping paper. When
it dries, you can cut the paper and use scotch tape to wrap your books
with your artwork!
Lunch Sacks
Don't put the paint away
yet! Decorate some plain brown lunch
sacks with colorful paint designs! Lunches will never be lost again!
School Work Holder
A special place for storing
school projects. Find a box that you think will be a
good size for school "take-home" projects. (A shirt box? A pizza box? A shoe box?)
Paint
the outside of the box using white tempera paint. When the paint has completely
dried you
are ready to decorate! Mix some craft glue with a bit of water in a sturdy
paper plate.
Using a paint brush apply the glue to tissue paper strips and shapes.
Arrange on the box. You
can also paint over the tissue paper to make sure that
it stays secure. When finished
you'll have a colorful, homemade school work holder!
See - Through
Schoolhouse
For each child make a
schoolhouse pattern on construction paper; then cut out.
Using a craft knife, cut out the windows and door on each schoolhouse.
Then have each child glue a piece of colored cellophane behind the door
and windows on the cutout. After the glue dries, encourage the children to
color their
schoolhouse and glue glitter on the bell. When that glue dries, shake off
the excess glitter.
Mount the schoolhouses on your classroom windows. Your students will soon
discover that
they can look out their schoolhouse windows and doors and see a world of
another color!
It's the Bus
To prepare, cut out a
supply of white construction paper squares and black construction
paper circles to resemble bus windows and wheels. Then mix a few drops of
orange
fingerpaint into yellow fingerpaint to achieve a school bus-yellow hue.
Invite each youngster
to paint a sheet of fingerpaint paper with the mixture. When the paint
dries, use a marker to
round the top corners of each paper so that the page resembles the body of
a bus. Have
each child cut away the corners, then glue on the window and wheel
cutouts. When the
glue is dry, encourage each child to draw faces in the windows
to represent himself and his
friends. Follow up this art activity with a rousing round of "The Wheels
On the Bus."
School Bus Craft
Materials Needed:
Milk Carton (small pint size works best)
Construction Paper
Markers and/or Paint
4 Bottle Caps or Lids from a Milk Jugs
Glue and/or Tape
Instructions:
Paint the 4 bottle or milk caps black to make the wheels for the bus.
You can also cut small circles from black construction paper and glue the
to the outside of the caps. If you can't have bottle or milk caps, try to
find
some big buttons, or anything else that is small and round; even small
circles cut out of construction paper will work. Cut a piece of yellow
construction paper to cover the entire outside of the milk carton. Glue
or tape it around the milk carton. Now, using the markers or paint,
draw the details on the bus (windows and even kids in the windows, etc)...
Once you get it decorated the way you want it, you are ready to attach the
wheels. Here is the tricky part... Glue the wheels into place! If you are
using
the bottle or milk caps they will be heavy and you will have to work to
find a
good position to lay your bus until the wheels dry. You will want most of
the
wheel attached to the bus body with very little hanging over the bottom
edge.
If you want, glue on the wheels for one side at a time and let it dry
laying on the side.
School Buses
Make school buses out of yellow
construction paper. You can have
the outline of the bus drawn ahead of time and allow the children to
practice their cutting. They can glue on paper wheels. If you have
pictures
of the child, you can cut out the child's head and have them glue it in
the
window of the bus or they can just draw some children's heads.
Could also practice the child's bus number by printing it on the bus.
Sponge Painting
I cut out school shapes out
of sponges (school house,
pencil, bell, bus) and then let the children sponges paint.
Kissing Hand Heart
Handprints
Read The Kissing Hand by
Audra Penn and have the kids make
handprints with a heart in the middle to give to their parents.
School Box Craft
Makes for a great first day
art craft
1 school box per child (Plastic or Card board)
1 pk. of stickers per child (usually have the parent supply)
1 permanent marker-Black
Sticker name tag
Back to School People
Preschool and kindergarten
children become excited about pre-school when
they recognize their names and teachers involve the family with
the class during this beginning of the school year craft activity.
Materials:
Large poster board.
Description:
We always have our Open House before school starts to give children a chance
to meet
their
teachers and explore their classroom. On that night, I also give each child a
large
poster board cut-out of a person with instructions for them (and family) to
decorate it
to look like the child. They bring it back on the first day of school and I hang them
all along one wall with their names underneath. They stay there all year and get
sent home
on graduation day.
Comments:
Parents and children loved this! The kids love to point
out themselves when we have guests in our classroom!
Back to School
Blessing Bag Craft
Materials Needed:
Paper lunch bags
and the items listed below.
Directions:
Place the following items in the bag:
1. A tissue to remind you to wipe away your tears or someone else's.
2. Star stickers to remind you of the One who created them. (Gen.1:14-15)
3. A toothpick to remind you to pick out the good qualities in others. (Matt.
7:1)
4. A rubber band to remind you to be flexible. Things might not go
the way you want, but they will work out (Rom. 8:28).
5. A Band-Aid to remind you to heal hurt feelings, yours or someone else's.
(Col. 3:12-14)
6. A pencil to remind you to list your blessings from God. (Eph. 1:3)
7. An eraser to remind you that everyone makes mistakes and that's OK. (Gen.
50:15-21)
8. Chewing gum to remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything.
(Phil. 4:13) And to remind you that there is Jesus who sticks closer than a
brother. (Prov. 18:24)
9. A mint to remind you that YOU are worth a mint to Your Heavenly Father. (John
3:16)
10. A candy Hug to remind you that everyone needs a hug everyday. (1 John 4:7)
11. A Bible verse bookmark to remind you to keep God's Word in your heart.
(Psalm 119:11)
Make a small "Back to School Blessings Bag" tag to place on the outside of the
bag.
Type up the list above and include it in the bag. Or cut the list apart
and
tie the item name with the words and bible verse to each item separate
Personalized Pencils
Materials Needed:
pencil, pipe cleaner, alphabet beads.
Directions:
Have child spell out their name with the alphabet beads. Make an arch with
the beads in the middle then wrap the end around the top of the pencil.
I personally would hot glue it in place after the child is done so it
doesn't come off.
Fun Back To School
Craft Ideas
I bought my students
notebooks and gave them old jeans. old dress shirts, and old t-shirts
and let them cut them up and glue them on their notebooks. They loved
being able to
decorate their notebooks so they were individualized. You could also do
that with pencil
boxes or pencil bags. Also have the children make bead buddies or perler
(fuse)
bead key chain to decorate their backpacks.
Open House Idea
One year we had our
preschool children bring in an old pair of pants and a shirt that
they no longer wore. The children stuffed these with newspaper. We
attached the pants
to the shirts and then added paper bag heads that the children had
decorated with markers
and yarn. The evening of open house each of the "stuffed children" were in
a chair at the
table. In front of them we placed the artwork of each of the corresponding
children!
School House Craft
Cut out a red
schoolhouse...or have the kids cut it out if they can...
buy stickers of school supplies (or cut school supplies out of
newspaper ads), glue school
supplies on school house.
School Bus Craft
Dot to dot school bus or
cut school bus out of yellow construction paper. Cut out 3 or 4
windows on the bus and take a pic of the child, put childs pic in one
window and cut out
children's faces in the others or their friends pics from your group.
Glue school bus on
large piece of construction paper and make roads with white chalk. Glue
or draw
stop lights cut from magazines....put sticker trees...etc.
Decorative Pen /
Pencil
Give the children a pen or pencil
to decorate with embroidery thread. I used tacky
glue to glue the thread to the top of the pencils then put a eraser on the
top to hold
it in place. Then have the children wrap the thread around until they get
to the end.
I then glue the end and put a clothespin to hold it in place until it
dries.
another way to decorate the pens or pencil is with flowers and flower tape
and the last the way to decorate the pens or pencils is to roll them in glue
then in seed beads and let the dry some other crafts are to let the children
decorate pencil
bags with fun foam letters or shapes. Also making
a summer journal to remember all the fun of
the summer.
Color Bear - Class
Mascot
Let each child color a bear
cutout (for class mascot) for each child’s picture on the wall.
Handprint Artwork
Portfolios
Each month have
preschoolers render paintings using their handprints or footprints -
for example, a handprint sunflower (September), a footprint scarecrow
(October),
and a handprint gobbler (November). At the end of the year, bind each
child's paintings between a personalized cover titled "Me at (child's
age)"
Then send home the portfolios of artwork for families to treasure.
Monthly Headbands
Make a class supply of each
month's calendar header. Then, on the first school day of
each month, have each child color and cut out a copy of the corresponding
header. Glue
each child's work to a construction paper strip cut to fit around the
child's head. Then
staple the ends of the strip and invite the youngsters to sport his/her
monthly headband.
