Handprint Wreath

Just happened to be the day Daniel practiced writing "W" for "wreath!"

As I traced around my three children's hands to make this wreath, I suddenly remembered how much I loved having my hand traced when I was little.  And I do mean loved -- I would get so excited in Sunday school or homeschool when we made things that involved tracing around our hands -- something about that sensation just delights me.  I had to trace around my own hand while making these, just to relive the thrill.  So odd, isn't it, the things that trigger memories of our childhood?  And the small actions that bring joy to a little person, as simple as a pencil or crayon running around their hand.

Anyway, for this wreath you will need:

Green construction paper (4 sheets)
Red construction paper (1 sheet)
Pencil
Scissors
Stapler
Glue
Tag board or cardboard

You start by tracing around the hands of all the kids you want to include in the wreath.  I just traced once around each of my children's hands, and then used those as templates for the rest of the hands.  You'll need about 24 hands.  I ended up cutting most of them out myself because Daniel got tired of cutting and Mercedes is just learning about scissors.  She did enjoy cutting my scraps into tiny shreds, however.  Once all the hands were done, I used a big dinner plate to cut a ring out of a piece of tag board for the back.  Then we stapled the hands around the back ring, hiding the staples with the next hand I'd put on.  We cut little round berries from red paper and used a glue stick to add those, and then I free-handed a bow shape on the rest of the red paper and cut that out, and we glued it on as well.  And here it is, decorating the door to our coat closet:

This is a better activity for kindergartners and up than for preschoolers, unless you plan another activity for them while you're cutting out all those hands, because little ones will get bored.

I got the idea from Pinterest, where someone pinned this blog post.