Skeleton Handprint Craft for Toddlers
This skeleton handprint craft for toddlers and preschoolers is a fun way to explore skeletons and an easy halloween craft handprint craft too!
The toddlers and preschoolers in my daycare love making handprint crafts, so this little skeleton handprint craft the perfect Halloween craft to go along with our lesson about skeletons today.
I wasn’t sure if the 2 and 3 year olds knew about skeletons, so I started our lesson by explaining that your skeleton is a framework of bones inside your body, and how all of the bones are all connected to each other. We examined our skulls and our hands and feet, fingers and toes, pushing and probing to feel the bones inside of them.
I also explained how the Doctor can take a picture of your bones using an x-ray machine, and we looked at images of a skeletons and of x-rays on the internet.
Then we got down to work with a fun and easy skeleton craft so the kids could make their own handprints and put some “bones” inside. Check out the skeleton footprint craft we made with the leftover styrofoam.
Let me show you how we made them.
Supplies for making skeleton handprints:
- for the “bones”: black styrofoam meat or produce tray (sterilized in dishwasher)
- square of white cardboard (alternatively, you could glue a piece of white paper to a panel of a cereal box)
- white and black paint
- paint brushes
- glue
How to make your skeleton handprint craft:
Have the kids brush the black styrofoam meat tray with some white paint. No need to ensure full coverage here. If there’s some black peeking through that’s totally fine. Actually, that’s great.
While that’s drying, have your child make his handprint on the white cardboard. I brushed each hooligan’s hand with black paint and helped press it to the card. You want your child’s hand to make full contact with the card, so help them by gently pressing and jiggling their hand against the card.
A bucket of soapy water and a towel on the floor beside us made for a quick clean up.
While the hooligans were waving and blowing on their handprints to speed up the drying, I quickly cut the styrofoam meat tray into long thin (very thin) strips.
Then I had the hooligans cut those strips up into small pieces.
Then, using a paint brush, they covered their handprints with glue and filled them in with their styrofoam “bones”.
I LOVE the way they turned out!
For more easy Halloween Crafts, check out:
Skeleton Footprint Craft
Monster Hands
Halloween Hand Melt experiment!
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
