I have done this craft for two years now, and if you’re a teacher…do not dive into this craft lightly. It’s not a quick or clean craft. If you’re a mom, or doing this with fewer kiddos, you should be just fine. I love it because it’s super versatile. Last year I used it as a Mother’s Day gift, this year I used it as an Easter craft, it could be perfect for spring-time themes, life cycle units, etc.
You need…
- paint (I used tempera)
- cardstock
- markers
- kids who aren’t (too) afraid to get dirty
- cleaning supplies
- and if you’re unlucky (or just teach Kindergarten), carpet cleaner
Step One. Pour generous amounts of paint in a small tub (or paper plate or whatever you have available). Let the colors mix a bit.
Step Two. Press bare feet to paint. I find I learn a lot about my kids at this point. Sometimes I’m surprised by the kids who love it. Sometimes I’m more surprised by the kids who hate it.
Step Three. Press painted feet to cardstock paper as so…
Step Four. Clean feet and let paint dry. If you are doing this with a class, I recommend doing it at the end of the day so students have no time to ask, “Are they done yet?” “Do we get to color them now?” “Mrs. T, can I fix my arches?”
Step Five. Model to students how to color in the butterfly body and antennae. I try to give as minimal modeling as possible, because if I show detailed examples, I suddenly realize I have about 14 replicas of my model. Let students use markers to color! Or puffy paint. Or glitter. Or whatever you want.
Step Six. You’re done! When I taught first grade, the students wrote: Happy Mother’s Day! I love you! on them. But this year we ran out of time and kept it simple.
A challenge was scheduled for this week, buuuut I have an Easter craft I wanted to post, so the challenge will be postponed until next week. Anyway, this craft is very simple and requires minimal materials, so I think you will find it easy to do with your own children (or students…or nieces, nephews, etc).
I teach in a Pre-K classroom at a Catholic school, and this week we were teaching a unit on the 5 senses. So, we wanted all of our activities (including art) to incorporate the five senses. Also, because we are swiftly approaching Easter, we wanted to add in an Easter component.
So, if you take the traditional route to celebrating Easter, you might dye eggs and have an egg hunt. Well, what to do with all of those eggs after you have found them? Crush them up into little tiny pieces and make tile mosaic art out of them (duh).
We are having our Easter egg hunt next week, so we had all the kids paint the eggs in Easter friendly colors.
Then, crush up the egg shells into little pieces (have the kids do it if age appropriate).
Then, we divided the eggs into cups for each student. (Preventing any unnecessary, “He got more than me!” fights)
Brush a thin layer of Elmer’s glue onto a piece of paper (we used a thicker cardstock).
And press the pieces of eggshell onto the glue. We used this as a teachable moment to talk about the sense of touch and how the eggshells feel and how sometimes you have to break them so they will be flat against the glue. The kids did much better with this than I actually anticipated, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to develop fine gross motor skills.
And here are the final products drying. When I get back to school on Monday, I will use the rectangles to make a cross on our class bulletin board. This will be a nice bridge between Easter traditions (egg dying) and the true importance of Easter for believers.
Love this activity because it’s (1) great way to recycle dyed eggshells instead of throwing them away (2) easily integrated with other ideas and concepts and (3) the kids really enjoyed it. Happy (early) Easter! Hope it’s family filled and beautiful.
