For parent Christmas gifts this year, my preschool director got in touch with a local paint-your-own-pottery shop. Each kiddo in our preschool creates the most darling hand print Christmas plates for their parents!
Related: Christmas activities for preschoolers
For the youngest children, teachers painted their feet and pressed footprints onto the plates. We then added brightly-colored polka dots, the year, and the child’s name. Underneath all of that was written “mistleTOES”.
The toddlers and three-year old students made their hand prints into Rudolphs. With the help of their teachers, their hands were painted brown and pressed onto the plate. They each used red paint on a fingertip to add Rudolph’s nose, and black paint was used to add antlers, eyes, and hooves. A few of us teachers added the decorative polka dots, the year, and each child’s name.
The oldest classrooms, including mine, used their fingerprints to make snowmen. The kiddos painted the background of their plates sky blue. Once the blue was dried, the teachers painted four fingers and the upper palm of each child’s hand with white paint. With the teachers’ help, the students pressed their white prints onto their plates. The children then went back and decorated their snowmen using red, green, and black paints. A few of us teachers added the polka dots, the year, and the children’s names.
I absolutely adore how well the children’s plates turned out! Each child had a different version, and I swear their personalities came through.
I suggested making some with Engineer, and he was all for it. He chose to make a reindeer version, as well as a snowman version. As you can see from his expression, he was very much into the painting. He helped me with the polka dots, but let me add the year and his name to both plates. He and I decided to keep one for ourselves and give the other to his grandparents. I think ours will be used to set aside cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.
What fun Christmas keepsakes have your children/students made recently?
More info in this post would be great, like what kind of paint was used and what was it sealed with so the paint stays on/doesn’t scratch or flake off.
Caroline, thank you for the suggestion. We just used the paint that the paint-your-own-pottery store provided. They put the plates in their kiln, which is why it’s so shiny and nice. I will come back with some suggestions for paints and sealers if you make it at home. 🙂
I would definitely suggest using acrylic paints, then use an acrylic paint sealer than leaves behind a shine! 🙂