Activities: Multicultural Handprint Wreath
Celebrate diversity with this cool craft.
Submitted by
Kayla Chong
Kayla Chong
Have your kid make a unity wreath out of felt handprints to celebrate diversity and culture. You can keep your kid occupied with this activity and teach her a thing or two about tolerance and harmony all at once. We'll high-five to that.
- Your kid's hand
- Lightweight cardboard:Like the back of a couple of cereal boxes. Something you can cut up. Heavy paper will also work.
- Felt:In different shades to represent different skin tones (i.e., tan, like Uncle Jake's, brown like cousin Rowan's and blue like Blue's).
- Nine-inch paper plates:Use the thickest ones you have.
- White glue
- A pen
- Scissors
- Newspaper
- Embellishments:Such as glitter glue, sequins, buttons, ribbon, etc.
- Hot-glue gun and glue sticks:Kids and hot glue don't mix, so make sure you do all the gluing.
Get your kid to trace handprints onto the cardboard or heavy paper and cut them out.
She should trace her own and then find different sizes of hands to trace, too, like yours, your partners, the mailman's, the neighbor down the street, etc. She'll need at least 10 to 12 handprints depending on how big around she wants to make her wreath.
When she's traced and cut out the hands on the cardboard, help her trace the cardboard templates on the different colors of felt.
Help her cut them out.
Plug in your hot-glue gun.
Lay a sheet of newspaper down on the work surface so it doesn't get coated in glue. (Pssst! Pick a page of the paper with an article you're dying to read and you can sneak a peek while you craft.)
Use your hot glue to carefully glue the felt hands into a wreath shape, about the size of a paper plate. Let your kid tell you where to put the hand while you do the gluing.
Help your kid cut a big circle out of the middle of the paper plate. Then cut off the rim of the plate, so you have a big flat Froot Loop shape.
Lay the plate upside down on top of the newspaper and apply a layer of glue to it. You can let your kid do this step with white glue, or you can do it yourself with hot glue.
Help your kid carefully glue the felt hands to the paper plate circle, pressing it down to make sure you get a good stick.
- Turn the circle over and help your kid cut out all of the overlapping felt in the center of the wreath to create a nice round center.
- Finally, have her decorate the wreath with glitter glue, sequins, buttons, ribbons, more felt ... whatever her fabulous heart desires. You can make a solid center to the wreath with felt or paper, or you can keep a hole in the center like a traditional wreath. Might make a great picture frame that way!
- Hang it up every year during Black History or Hispanic Heritage Month or leave it up year-round if she loves it. It'll be the only handprint your kid leaves on your wall that makes you proud, not P.O.'d.
- Not into wreaths? Make a Unity Rainbow instead. Follow steps 1 through 4 and then have your kid glue the handprints together in an arc rather than a circle. Or better yet, have her create her own unique shape. A Unity Octagon activity sounds good!
Submit!
