Okay, I know I was just chatting about Halloween earlier this week… but what can I say? I seriously love celebrating all the things. One holiday rolls in and my brain is already skipping ahead to the next one — which, of course, got me thinking about Christmas (and even Valentine’s Day!) and all the fun we pack into our Family Unit Studies from the Celebrations Bundle.
So today, I just had to pop in and give you a little peek inside Christmas School — specifically, one of our favorite hands-on activities: fingerprint crafts! They’re the perfect mix of messy, magical, and secretly educational. You’ll find this activity inside Christmas School, which you can grab on its own or bundled with four other festive units in the Celebrations Bundle — and yep, it’s 25% off!
Benefits of Making Fingerprint Art
I absolutely love fingerprint art, as it is easy enough for the littlest crafters to join in and have fun, but it also leaves so much room for creativity with bigger kids. Plus, there are just so many benefits!
Now, please entertain the teacher in me while I present you with a lovely little list of benefits…
1. Fine Motor Skill Development: Pressing fingers into the ink pad and carefully positioning prints is wonderful for fine motor and hand-eye coordination development.
2. Sensory Exploration: The feeling of wet ink or paint, dry and smooth paper, etc. This is also a perfect opportunity for vocabulary building as you describe the different sensations!
3. Creativity and Imagination: A simple fingerprint can become so many different things. You can also experiment with layering different colors and sizes of fingerprints to make some truly unique designs.
4. Problem-Solving Skills: Planning how to combine fingerprints to form different items, or even figuring out how to get a fresh sheet of paper when all ten of your fingers are covered in ink (whoops), will strengthen those problem-solving skills.
5. Emotional Expression: Art is an amazing outlet for self-expression, and fingerprint art is no exception!
6. Early Learning Concepts: You can add in so much learning with fingerprint art—shapes, colors, patterns, counting, and more.
7. Bonding and Social Interaction: Try making a piece of collaborative art! Or fill a page with different colored fingerprints and have your little one turn them into something (like we did here).
Not to mention, it’s just FUN!
Who knew I had so much to say about fingerprint art?!
Alrighty, onto the activity…
Christmas Fingerprint Art for Kids
Materials
To make your Christmas fingerprint art, you will need:
- Paper
- Paint or ink pad
- Black marker or pen
You’ll also want to grab this FREE Sample of Christmas School! It includes the complete Reindeer topic (where we make this fingerprint art), as well as the beautiful vocabulary cards that accompany the unit study:
Directions
Let’s get creative with some fingerprint reindeer art! There are many different ways you can make a fingerprint reindeer. Take a look at the examples in your Christmas School sample for some inspiration.
While making your Christmas fingerprint art, you could watch a YouTube video and learn some interesting facts about reindeer or enjoy a read-aloud together.
Christmas School includes recommended YouTube videos and books for each of the 10 topics. You can see the recommendations for the Reindeer topic by grabbing the free sample.
Christmas Fingerprint Art Extension Activity
When you are all done, you could choose to display your art, gift it to someone special, or even turn it into a Christmas card or gift tag.
You could also challenge your children to see what other pictures they can make using fingerprints. Perhaps a snowman, some colorful Christmas lights… or maybe a wreath!
Celebrations Family Unit Study Bundle
Keep that fun, hands-on learning and crafting going all year long with the Celebration Family Unit Study Bundle! Grab your copy and start today:
https://shop.tstest18.techsurgeons.com/products/celebrations-bundle
Thank you for reading, my friend!
xo
Sarah
