Hand Print Art for Thanksgiving

The Mayflower handprint art is one of my favorite Thanksgiving holiday activities for preschoolers! Students will engage their senses, practice early literacy skills, and learn about the Mayflower with this simple art project.

Each month in preschool, I use the children’s hand prints to make different pictures.  Usually these hand print paintings are related to our monthly theme or an important holiday.  For November this year, I went with hand print Mayflowers.

Mayflower Art Materials

We only used a handful of supplies for this simple project (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):

• Light blue construction paper
• Brown paint
• Paintbrush
• Sails precut from white paper

It was pretty simple to do — I painted the kids’ hands brown, then had them press their hands down on light blue construction paper.  Once the “ships” were dry, the children added white sails that I had cut out of construction paper.  It was fun to see where the sails ended up.  One little girl very carefully placed three sails on the tips of her painted fingers.  One of my boys took a deconstructionist view and had the sails willy-nilly in the space under the “ship”.

Once all of the hand print Mayflowers were done, I called each child over individually.  In addition to a monthly hand print painting, I also like to do a writing sample with each child.  It’s a great way to show growth over the course of the year, as well as being a meaningful writing experience for the students.

I asked each child what she wanted to tell me about her ship.  From there, I helped her stretch the words and write down the parts she heard.  If she knew the word/letter, she wrote it.  If not, I wrote it, after a quick explanation.  This was basically an individualized version of interactive writing — the story was student-driven, I modeled how to walk through the writing process, spelling and writing conventions were adhered to, etc.

I have a variety of hand print art ideas saved on my {School} Hand Prints Pinterest board, as well as on the theme-related board on Pinterest.  Do you enjoy making hand print art with your kiddos?

Shared on Cheerios & Lattes’ Saturday Show and Tell, I Can Teach My Child’s Show-and-Share Saturday, and No Time For Flash Cards’ Link & Learn.

Done-for-You Preschool Resources

Planning meaningful lessons for students week after week while balancing other teaching responsibilities and a personal life can be a daunting task. That’s where Preschool Teacher 101 comes in to save you time!

Preschool Teacher 101 has created some amazing preschool lesson and activity plans that will be perfect for your classroom. You can incorporate the hand-print ship art into Thanksgiving lesson plans or even a pirate theme!

Click the images below for more information about each resource.

Join The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101 today for exclusive access to our content. We have a variety of membership options to suit your needs.