Craft Time: Handprint Trees

Yesterday we hosted a group playdate at our house and we wanted to do a little sensory play! There were four little boys in total and I thought it would be lots of fun to make handprints trees together, and then each little one could take home a tree with their friends handprints on it. I purchased the materials we would need ahead of time (some paint, and paintbrushes) and I had the other materials already on hand (Sketch/Paint paper, some brown cardstock, glue, and a Sharpie Marker).

I cut out a tree shape with the brown cardstock and glued it to the center of the white sketch/paint paper, leaving lots of room at the top of the tree for the little handprints. I selected five different colours of paint so that each child would have some choice as to which colour they wanted to use. (In reality it was mum choosing at this point!)

We did each boys handprint one at a time, and painted their hand before we/they pressed it onto each of the four papers. As I was painting their hands I was asking them questions like whether it tickled, or if the paint felt cold. Some of the boys liked to close their fist around the brush and squeeze feeling the paint squish around their fingers.

The results were awesome, and after the handprints were all done I wrote each boys name over their hands so that we could all remember whose was whose and keep track of which friends were over that day. We're going to frame ours and hang it up in our play space and later it will get added to the boy-o's memory book as a cool keepsake of our first group playdate at our house! The next time we host I think we're doing to dive into some MAGIC MUD.

Your Turn:

What's your favourite sensory activity to share during playdates?