With Thanksgiving not far and Christmas on the horizon, the holiday season is in full gear! But, while we love this time of year, the holidays can also mean stir-crazy students ready for a break. That’s why CTP has come up with three fun and festive activities to keep your students engaged while learning. And with the help of our Multicultural Hands cut outs, these handprint crafts require minimal supplies and clean up.
Wreath of Thankfulness
While this craft is perfect for Thanksgiving, it doesn’t have to be limited to the holiday. Any time is a great time to teach your students about gratitude. With this simple handprint project, your students will focus on the positives in their life, while getting to contribute to a beautiful wreath that showcases the abundance of diversity and blessings your classroom has to share.
Step one: Let your students pick out the handprint that they feel best represents themselves.
Step two: Each student writes one thing they are grateful for on their handprint.
*Step three: Using a glue stick, glue together each handprint in a circular fashion, being careful not to cover your students’ writing. It is often easiest to glue the thumb to the back of the next palm. Start with a small center circle, and glue larger circles over the fingers of the first circle.
*If gluing each hand together is too difficult for your students, or if you have a large number of students, have them glue their hands in a circle around a large poster board or piece of paper attached to the classroom door. This way hands do not need to overlap.
Diversity Rainbow
Celebrate your classroom’s multicultural background with a symbol of harmony: the rainbow. This is a great craft to facilitate discussion about the many different backgrounds your students may come from, the holidays they may celebrate at home, and how together each student helps make your classroom whole.
Step one: Let your students pick out the handprint that they feel best represents themselves.
Step two: Have each student right their name. As an additional exercise in positivity and self-esteem, you can ask your students to add one thing they like about themselves.
Step three: Sort your students’ handprints by shades. If needed, you can add blank handprints to fill in gaps, or have your students write things they like about their class and their classmates on spare cut outs.
*Step four: Starting with the smallest number of handprints, glue the hands in a curve, making sure not to cover your students’ handwriting. Gluing thumb to back of palm works best for this. Glue the next smallest number of handprints in a slightly larger curve on top of the fingers of the first curve. Continue until you have each layer of your multicultural rainbow.
*If gluing each handprint together is too difficult for your students, or if your classroom is too large (or small!) to make a stand-alone rainbow, you can use poster board, or a piece of paper attached to your classroom door.
A “Me” Ornament for Your Holiday Tree
While this craft is great for decorating your Christmas tree, a “me” ornament can adorn any wall, fridge, desk, ceiling, or gift tag as well. This activity is not only extremely easy, it’s also incredibly customizable, making it the perfect add-on art project for a busy teacher trying to make learning more fun.
Step one: Let your students pick out the handprint that they feel best represents themselves.
Step two: Have them answer the question, “Who am I?” and write it on their handprint. This is a great exercise in identity and self-esteem building, but what your students write on their hands can be adjusted to fit any project your classroom might already be working on, from a book you are reading to a message or poem that can be gifted to a parent.
Step three: Using a hole punch, have your students punch a hole in one of the fingers of their handprint.
*Step four: Cut some lengths of yarn at about six inches each.
*Step five: Have your students thread one piece of yarn through the hole in their handprint and tie it in a loop.
*Alternatively, you can cut one long piece of yarn and have each student thread their handprint onto it to create a garland for your classroom. Let your students present to the class what they wrote on their handprint as they do this.
