With the school year coming to an end, it’s already about time to start planning for next year. When I think of back-to-school season I usually think of apples, but my favorite August and September symbol is the sunflower. The first day of school often involves learning names too, so I thought a sunflower name and fingerprint craft would be great to along with introductions during the beginning of a new school year. To make it extra fun and crafty, we used paint to add fingerprints to the center. For my kids, that was the best part!
When doing this with a whole class, these would look BEAUTIFUL as a bulletin board display. Just add stems and leaves with green paper and you will have a nice sunflower field to introduce all of the new students in your class.
If you’re doing this at home with your kids, they make nice keepsakes. We made ours for grandma and she loves it.
Materials Needed for the Sunflower Name Fingerprint Craft:
- Yellow construction paper
- Marker
- Scissors
- Paper dessert plates (usually 7 inches in diameter or less)
- Glue
- Non-toxic, washable paint in black and/or brown
Getting the Sunflower Name Fingerprint Craft Ready:
To get this craft ready, I pre-cut the sunflower petals. One sheet of construction paper can make 8 petals. To do this, I folded a piece of yellow construction paper into eighths. I folded the sheet of paper in half lengthwise, then along the width, and then along the width again. This gave me eight little rectangles.
I kept it folded and drew a petal shape to use as a cutting guide, and then cut through all 8 layers of paper. That way I had 8 sunflower petals cut all at once. For kids with more than 8 letters in their name, more petals can be made.
Doing the Sunflower Name Fingerprint Craft:
First, flip the small paper plate over so it’s face-down.
Add glue around the edges of the plate.
Next, start gluing down the sunflower petals. Ours fit nicely around the edge without overlapping. For names longer than 8 letters you may need to overlap the petals, which looks really nice too.
After the petals are glued down, write the letters of the student’s name in order – one letter per petal.
Now it’s time to paint! Dip a finger into the paint and paint dots on the paper plate to make center of the flower. Black or brown alone looks pretty, but we chose to use both.
Continue painting fingerprints until the center is how you like it.
Let the sunflower dry and then you’re finished! You can add leaves and a stem to make it a complete flower. You may even want to write the year or something like “First Day of School, 2017” on a leaf to remember the special day!
You might also like Back To School Bingo!
Need more back to school ideas?
[…] Sunflower crafts are everywhere in the fall season. Add a little name recognition to yours with this simple adaptation to a fun painting craft. […]