Once again it is time for a quick and easy hand print craft to mail to the grandparents!   This time a cheery earth day craft complete with trees and clouds!

Rory and I got into our paint clothes and went to town!   This activity was new for us because we normally only do a hand print (or a foot) but today we did the hand and the arm.

The weather was very nice so we went outside.   It was a great learning craft too.   I would point to the tree and explain to her we were making a tree, with a brown trunk and green leaves.   It took us a few tries to get the hand AND arm down at the same time but we eventually got it!

Materials needed:

• paints
• paper
• paintbrushes or dandelions
• cotton balls for clouds
• glue

After we were finished with the trees, we decided to draw some grass and flowers.   We picked a dandelion from the yard and I asked Rory what color she wanted to make the flowers in her picture (of course all things are Red or Blue to Rory now).   I made sure Rory knew that the yellow dandelion was being painted red to make red flowers on our picture.

We got another dandelion and made grass with green paint!

The dandelion was a great way to introduce texture.   She has been using paint brushes for so long and the dandelion was a fun new tool to use.   Soon she ran out to the yard and would come back with a handful of dandelions to use for more flowers.

We let the paintings dry overnight.

To help make the hand and arm look more like a tree, we got the green paint back out and painted her fingers.   We put fingerprints all around the tree to make it look like leaves.

We then put some glue where clouds should be and stretched out some cotton balls to make clouds.

Rory loves looking at the picture and pointing out “white cloud,” “red flower,” “green leaves.”

One more thing to hang up in Daddy’s office!

Celebrate Earth Day with these other fun projects:

• Earth Day Craft: Butterfly Collage
• Plant Learning Activities
• Enjoying Art Outdoors