hand print Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Three Tropical Rain Forest Talking Toucans Rhyme and a Craft

May 22, 2015 By Deirdre

This post is part of a series that is focused on the rainforest. It will include crafts, activities, and snacks. You can use the activities in this series as a unit or individually. Yesterday I shared with you a really cute blue morpho butterfly finger play and craft. Today’s rainforest animal is the toucan.

Tropical Rain Forest Three Talking Toucan Rhyme

Let’s start with a rhyme about toucans. The Three Talking Toucans don’t appear to have had any hand or body motions associated with it. I found the rhyme share on numerous sites and none of them shared any. I am sharing some that I think will work, but you can make up your own of course.

Three Talking Toucans

Three talking toucans sitting in a tree. (Hold one arm up like a tree with fingers spread out wide. Then hold three fingers from the other hand at the top of the tree.)

The first one turned and squawked at me! (Form a mouth with one hand. Open and close your hand like it is squawking.)

Three little toucans sitting in a row. (Hold up three fingers wide apart.)

The second one said, “I flap my wings, watch me go!”(Flap your arms up and down.)

Three little toucans sitting side by side (Hold up three fingers that are close together.)

The third one said, “My bright beak, I open wide!”(Hold up a hand like it is a mouth closed and slowly open it.)

Hand and Footprint Craft

After sharing the finger play, you can have your children craft a toucan. We made one by tracing one of my son’s shoes and his hand. The outline of his shoe and hand became the body and tail of the toucan.

We then cut out a wing shape. One of the wing’s sides was given a scalloped edge.

After having all the body parts we needed a cut of black paper complete, we cut out a beak. Toucans have various colors on their beaks. We chose to have the beak’s base color bright green.

Then various colors of tissue paper were cut out to go on the beak. You could have your children trace a section of the beak onto the tissue paper before cutting the tissue out. Another option is to glue the tissue paper onto the beak. When the glue has dried you can trim off the extra tissue. Either way will give stripes on your toucan’s beak.

Tissue paper was chosen because it can be challenging to cut. I wanted my son to work on his fine motor skills. Cutting thin tissue paper worked on those skills.

When the tissue paper on the beak had dried, the beak was glued to the toucan’s head. All that was left was to add a large wiggly eye and feet.

The feet were cut out of orange scrap paper. If you want to have your toucan displayed to look like it is flying you may choose to leave off its feet.

If you want to read about toucans with your children here are some wonderful toucan-themed books.

Timmy Toucan Dropped 10 Guavas (Mike Monkey Book 2)-This is a wonderful non-fiction book about toucans.

Toucans and Other Birds – This is a wonderful non-fiction book about birds. If you have children that love facts. This would be a good book for them.

Timmy Toucan Dropped 10 Guavas– What fun it is to count alongside Timmy Toucan!

If you try this finger play or craft or any of the other rainforest activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about how it went or share a picture of your toucan on my Facebook page.

{Christmas Craft} Candy Cane Reindeer

December 12, 2013 By Deirdre

I saw candy cane reindeer like this in the hall at my school. I knew immediately that we need to try to make one at home. They were just too cute. I am not sure if it was the hand print antlers or fact that it combined to wonderful Christmas elements. Candy canes and reindeer are such a fun!The ones I saw at school had paper noses and paper eyeballs. Ours needed more of a 3-D effect I decided. Thankfully we have giant wiggly eyes and red pom-poms on hand. Actually, we had everything we needed on hand. I love when things work out that way.

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers.

If you want to make one at home, here is what we did.

Trace two hands (One right and one left will work best)
Hand tracing will need to be cut out.
Then cut out a red candy cane shape
Next cut out white stripes for the candy cane
Glue the white stripes to the red cane
Cut the extra white paper of the edges of the red cane
One wiggly eye will need to be glued onto the red cane
Glue the brown hand antler in place on the top of the cane
Glue a red pom-pom in place if you want a Rudolph like candy cane reindeer ( A brown pom-pom could be used if you want to make a non-Rudolph reindeer.)

I think our candy cane reindeer Christmas craft is as cute as the ones I saw on display in hallway at school. Our little deer herd has only two deer as opposed to the large herd that is displayed in the hall at school though. Maybe you could make some candy cane reindeer at your house and we could have a virtual herd.

If you decided to make candy cane reindeer, let me know on the Facebook post featuring this craft. You can paste an Instagram link to a picture of yours if you like.

Are you looking for other reindeer Christmas craft and snack ideas?

Handprint Reindeer created for Hands On: As We Grow.

Creating a Reindeer Lunch

Treats for Santa and the Reindeer

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers. They will also love the pom pom nose and the wiggly eye.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

{Five Little Turkeys} Stick Puppets and Rhyme

November 18, 2013 By Deirdre

Five Little Turkeys Stick Puppets and Song

Have you ever sung the song the Five Little Turkeys with hand print turkey puppets? If you haven’t you, really should. It really is a lot of fun. We did it recently at our house. We put this activity together, because JDaniel loves the Halloween book Five Little Pumpkins .When I clear out the stuffed animals on his bed, I usually find the Five Little Pumpkins under one of them. Finding a Thanksgiving song that was similar and making puppets became a mission of me.

On a pretty day last week, JDaniel and I made turkey hand prints on our deck. I had to be careful not to tickle him as I applied the paint. After a few JDaniel sized turkey had been created, it was mine turn to make a couple. I think he did a better job of pressing his hand down to make a print then I did. I made a few extra turkeys so we could decide which of mine were the best five little turkeys.

We were so fortunate to have warm day. The turkey dried quickly. I think the fact we used washable paint on white drawing paper helped too. Construction paper and acrylic paint seems to take longer to dry. When they hand prints were dry, we added beaks and feet.

Then they were ready to cut out. We also cut out twelve by eight pieces of cardboard from cardboard boxes in our recycling box. The cardboard would be used to make the turkeys a little bit stiffer. A colored popsicle stick was threaded through two horizontal slits I made in the cardboard.(I didn’t think the popsicle stick glued between the hand print turkey and the cardboard would stay in place.

The hand print turkeys were glued onto the cardboard pieces and then cut out. It was a little tricky cutting through the cardboard even though it wasn’t that thick.

When all five little hand print turkey puppets were done. We worked on the rhyme. It was easy to learn its words. Holding the turkey was a challenge. We found that JDaniel needed to hold some and I need to hold others or we needed a tool to help us. The tool we found that worked the best was a chip clip. Two or three turkey could be attached to chip clips and the clips’ handles could easily be held by two hands.

The side of the kitchen table with a white sheet over the back door was a wonderful stage for the five little turkeys to bob up and down and say their rhyme from. We also found the end of the end of a bed and the railing of the deck worked too.

After singing the son a few times, JDaniel took the Thanksgiving decorations of our living room mantle and create a play with the five little turkeys. It was truly amazing.

Here is the Five Little Turkeys rhyme we used:

Five little turkeys standing at the door,
One waddled off, and then there were four.

Four little turkeys sitting near a tree,
One waddled off, and then there were three.

Three little turkeys with nothing to do,
One waddled off, and then there were two.

Two little turkeys in the morning sun,
One waddled off, and then there was one.

One little turkey better run away,
For soon it will be Thanksgiving Day.

If you have the opportunity to make hand print turkey puppets, you may want to think about having them say a Thanksgiving rhyme. Five little turkeys on stick puppets and a Thanksgiving theme rhyme are just plain Thanksgiving fun!

{Craft for Kids} Legend of the Dogwood

March 27, 2013 By Deirdre

Have you ever heard of the poem The Legend of the Dogwood Tree before? I hadn’t until my husband shared it with me. He remembers having it shared with him in Sunday school when he was a little boy.It is a beautiful poem about the about the species of tree that may have been used for Christ’s cross.

I decided the poem would have more meaning if I created a teaching tool to go along with it. JDaniel could easily have made this hand print craft on this own and would have if we hadn’t had a lot of things going on to get ready for our Spring Break trip.

How did we make these crafts for kids?

I brushed white paint onto my palm and then made four hand prints to make the dogwood blossom’s petals. I choose to space that hand print so that it didn’t overlap the other prints as three of the petal’s prints do. It needed to be a little longer than the other three.
The indentations at the bottom of my palms stands for the nail holes in Jesus’ palm. The red fingerprints represent his blood. They were made by my pinky finger. I made the indentations more definite when I cut out the cross later on.
An orange bingo marker was used to create the crown of Jesus or the center of the dogwood blossom. I filled in the crown but, you could create a simple ring of dots.
The dogwood blossom was cut out to resemble a cross and glued to light blue paper.

What does each painted element stand for?

The white paint stands for the purity of Christ.
The indentations at the bottom of my palms stands for the nail holes in Jesus’ palm.
The red fingerprints represent his blood.
The crown in the center of the dogwood blossom is the crown of thorns Jesus was made to wear.

Here is the Legend of the Dogwood Tree that my husband remembers:

Legend of the Dogwood Tree

In Jesus time, the dogwood grew

To a stately size and a lovely hue.

‘Twa strong and firm it’s branches interwoven

For the cross of Christ its timbers were chosen.

Seeing the distress at this use of their wood

Christ made a promise which still holds good:

“Never again shall the dogwood grow

Large enough to be used so….

Slender and twister, it shall be

With blossoms like the cross for all the see.

As blood stains the petals marked in reddish brown

The blossom’s center wears a thorny crown.

All who see it will remember me

Crucified on a cross from the dogwood tree.

Cherished and protected this tree shall be

A reminder to all of my agony.”

Author Unknown

You don’t have to actually make a craft to share this poem and lesson with your children. You could tell the story by using a real dogwood bloom if you have a dogwood tree available.
I think this craft for kids is a wonderful illustration of the Legend of the Dogwood and the message it shares.