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Home / Early Learning / Preschool Arts and Crafts / How to Make A Valentine Hand Print Craft Tree with Fingerprint Hearts

How to Make A Valentine Hand Print Craft Tree with Fingerprint Hearts

Shared by Mary Catherine 4 Comments

Let the children make a colorful valentine hand print craft using their hands and fingers.

Oh, how I love using kiddos’ hands and fingers to create art! Probably because the children love it so.

With my preschoolers, I like creating some kind of hand print art with the kids each month. This artwork gets saved and added to their end of the year portfolios.

For February, the kids and I tried our hand at a fun valentine hand print craft tree. We ended up calling it our “falling hearts tree”.

Are you following Fun-A-Day’s Valentine’s Day Pinterest board?

Valentine hand print craft keepsake for kids to make - A fingerprint heart tree

Related: Falling Hearts Glitter Jar

Table of Contents

  • Making Hand Print Trees in Preschool and Kindergarten
    • Wait, aren’t hand print crafts bad?
  • Making a Valentine Hand Print Craft Tree
  • Preschool Lesson Plans for Valentine’s Day

Making Hand Print Trees in Preschool and Kindergarten

I tend to make hand print hearts for February, but I decided to try something a little different.

In the past, my students and I have made a variety of hand print trees – one for the fall, a negative space fall tree, and a winter one. Those trees gave me the inspiration to come up with a heart tree for February!

Wait, aren’t hand print crafts bad?

I’ve heard from some early childhood educators who’ve said they don’t care for hand print art like this. I love hearing from other teachers, and it’s always great to have a discussion around differing viewpoints.

The disagreements I’ve encountered center on the fact that hand print art isn’t true process art. To be clear, I am a big proponent of process art in preschool and kindergarten (and beyond!). In fact, it’s always the bulk of the free art and art projects in my classrooms. Process art is definitely important for children, no question there.

However, I also think balance is important in early childhood classrooms. So sometimes we make special gifts for the children’s families. Sometimes we use hand prints and fingerprints to create art around a theme.

While those projects have a predetermined outcome, I still make sure the kids get free reign in how they create. I also make sure they’re involved in decision making during the projects – like choosing paint colors, determining what we want to make, etc.

Where do you stand on this issue?

Valentine hand print craft for kids to make in February - a keepsake fingerprint heart tree

Related: Heart Prints Valentine’s Day Art Project

Making a Valentine Hand Print Craft Tree

For the tree trunk and branches, I helped each child paint his hand and forearm with brown tempera paint. Then I helped the kids press their hands and arms onto a piece of white construction paper.

As the brown paint dried, I got the other paints ready (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post). The children and I decided that red, pink, and purple would be great colors for the hearts.

We had a quick discussion about adding white to colors to soften them and make the colors lighter.

Next up, it was time to add fingerprint hearts. Here, I walked the line of letting the children add the heart prints themselves and helping them.

Some children wanted to do it independently, while others got annoyed when the hearts didn’t turn out as they’d envisioned. So I helped when they wanted me to, and stayed back if they didn’t want help.

Make a Valentine's Day heart tree with the kids today. A fun and pretty valentine hand print craft for February!

Related: Valentine’s Day Invitation to Create Pastel Hearts

It was fun to see which children wanted hearts all over the tree and its branches, and which children wanted the hearts in very specific spots.

One of my little girls made her own, very precise, heart hand print tree and then decided I needed help. I think it turned out even better with her help!

Preschool Lesson Plans for Valentine’s Day

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes book suggestions, printable plans, over 30 learning activities (both whole group and centers) related to the theme, and corresponding printables.

  • cover image for hearts lesson plans for preschool
  • preschool lesson plans for Valentine's Day cover image

Grab the Hearts Preschool Lesson Plans and the Valentine’s Day Preschool Lesson Plans

You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers

Looking for another valentine hand print craft? Check out what some of my blogging buds have come up with:

Owl Always Love You Handprint Art | Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Baby Bum Print Valentines | House of Burke

I Love Ewe Sheep Handprint Art | Sugar Aunts

For more hand print art ideas, pop over to Fun-A-Day’s Hand Prints Pinterest board or Craftulate’s Hand, Foot and Finger Prints Pinterest board.

Help the kids make a hand print heart tree - This valentine hand print craft is easy and fun for the kids

Filed Under: Preschool Arts and Crafts Tagged With: Hand Prints, Valentine's Day

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Comments

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  1. Deborah says

    January 20, 2022 at 9:28 am

    Love this idea!!!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      January 20, 2022 at 7:55 pm

      Thank you, Deborah! Let me know if you give it a go! 🙂

      Reply
  2. florence says

    January 28, 2023 at 3:06 am

    Vraiment super
    Mon petit fils Victor va se faire une choix de le faire

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      January 28, 2023 at 12:38 pm

      Thank you! I hope Victor enjoys making the hand print heart tree!

      Reply
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My name is Mary Catherine, and I love to share meaningful {and fun} learning activities for kiddos! Feel free to browse and stay awhile!

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