Father's Day Craft

This is a classic, but in 12 years, we hadn't done it. 

This was the year.

I took some of our many puzzle pieces 

stored in our art studio, 

and spray painted the back sides the day before we were to use them.

They had the choice of using the painted ones or the unpainted ones.

Using large craft sticks, I hot glued the corners to form a  square frame.

The children used white school glue to attach the pieces around the edge, working on "DOTS NOT LOTS."

While they dried, I created a sign in word processing that I printed out on cardstock, so that it was easier for them to hold flat, and added a sticker to the bottom. 

My backdrops were wrinkled beyond belief, so we just draped up one of their sleeping bags.

I sized the pictures to 5 1/2 X 5 1/2 inches, printed, cut out, and laminated them before taping with regular tape to the back.

They turned out darling.

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Father's Day Craft and Printable

For our Father's Day craft, I asked the parents to bring in one of the Daddy's shoes. I suggested that a WASHABLE shoe would be best. I didn't want to ruin anyone's Italian leather dress loafers.

This worked this year, because I currently have all 2-parent households. In the past, when I have had absent parents or parents only occasionally involved with their children, we made less of a deal of Mother's or Father's Day. Sometimes we just skip it if the situation may be upsetting to any child. 

But this year was different. These children also have some WONDERFUL dads, so we couldn't NOT celebrate them.

The children picked the color of paint for both the shoe print and their own footprint. These two just chose the same colors, but for opposite elements.

The children thought it was pretty cool to paint on Daddy's shoe!

Hopefully this won't set a precedent at home...

They also thought it was pretty cool to paint their feet!

"HEY! That TICKLES!" - G age 2

Then they glued on the poem.

We added their name and the date to the upper right corner. 

I helped as needed according to age/skill with this 
product art piece.

They turned out pretty AWESOME!

Just like our dads!

I chose to use construction paper for the base, because, frankly, these dads have some pretty big feet and they wouldn't fit on my regular size card stock. Next time I will probably get legal-size or at least larger card stock or cut down some poster board. If I use legal size card stock, I would probably run it through the printer for the poem first and add the year to it. I'd still have them write their names. 

The poem page is available to PRINT.

Here's a site for additional Father's Day Poems.

The inspiration for this craft came from THIS PINTEREST PIN, which unfortunately didn't have an attached link.

Tags: father's day, father, daddy, poem, craft, card, art, footstep, walk, slower, paint, footprint, shoe print, dad, childcare, daycare, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, child, kid, printable, free