Childrens Christmas Crafts no 1 - Reindeer Hand and Foot print

With Christmas rapidly approaching it is that time of year when parents, teachers, playgroup leaders and so forth spend time searching through the Internet and craft books to find suitable ideas for children- only to then have to work out how to adapt the craft for their specific age group. Well look no further. For the next 7 days I am going to blog a different craft activity each day and discuss how this can be differentiated for various age group.

Today's installment - Foot and hand print Reindeer's!!!

This hand print reindeer is a fun creative craft that is made from a child's footprint and hand prints. It is good way of discussing proportion and scale, looking at scissor skills as well as creating a nice addition to the memory box documenting your children when they are small. 

You will need, paper, 2 googly eyes (optional), Red pom pom/glitter or paint, Scissors, Glue, Crayons or paint

 The finished Design. I have been quite traditional in my colour choice however children may want to make their reindeer purple and pink with blue spots - this should be encouraged. it is so hard to encourage children to be creative when they are only given limited materials and colours to work with.

Take a rubbing of the bottom of a shoe, most children’s shoes have a really interesting patterns on them. You can do this by placing a piece of paper on top of the sole of the show and rubbing gently with a crayon or pencil. Make sure that children are either sitting down or take their shoes of to take rubbings rather than balancing in one foot - we don't want anyone falling over! Children could work in pairs for this activity.

 This is a completed rubbing from the bottom of a shoe

 

Trace around your hands on plain white paper. When drawing a picture or cutting out parts to be stuck together children often struggle with proportion and scale. If they use their hands and feet to create this piece it will be in proportion because they are, You can have some real fun playing around with this drawing around an adults hand and feet as well and mixing them with the smaller children's cut outs.

 Now have a look around the classroom for any interesting textures. Make sure that you encourage the children to feel the textures before taking a rubbing, discuss whether it is smooth, rough, bumpy - do you think it will work if you rub a crayon over the top? Fill the outline of the hand prints with rubbings of textured surfaces. I have used oil pastels to do this but you could use coloured pencils or crayons.

Carefully cut out your footprint and hand prints, for younger children an adult will have to do this part. Key stage one children that are working on their cutting skills should be encouraged to try to cut out the shapes

Glue the two hand prints (at the wrist portion) to the back of the footprint (up near the toes) to be the antlers.

Draw two eyes at the top of the head or you could glue two googly eyes. Finally for the nose you can either use glitter glue, as I have done for this example, Glue on a pom pom or paint on a red nose.

This is a good exercise for all age groups as there are alot of ways this can be adapted.

For young children, (or children that like getting messy) you

For Key stage one children you may need to help them draw around the shapes and cut them out before they collect rubbing. Children could also paint a design on the cut out pieces rather than collect rubbings.

Key stage two children will enjoy painting their hands and collecting rubbings as this provides an opportunity for them to explore art making techniques that they do not often get to use. If you wanted to give them something a bit more challenging they could collage the facial features by cutting out sections of colour from magazines and then glue these pieces on the reindeer.

This may be a bit young for Key stage three children, but they could adapt the piece and make it a little more abstract. Possible adding a hint of pop art style to the pieces. Alternatively they could cut out the sections and paint a Christmas scene on the surface using acrylic paint. Make sure that you use a good quality paper or card if you are going to apply paint.

Have fun and don't forget to email me any of your pictures of completed projects.

 can create this by painting your hands and feet and printing them onto paper rather than collecting rubbings. Be sure to have a bowl of water and towels on the stand by.