Blog

Father’s Day is almost here, and you might be starting to plan your card making afternoon at your nursery setting or your home. What better way to make a Dad feel special than to receive a lovingly handmade card from his children?

Spending some time creating beautiful handmade cards for fathers and other paternal figures is a valuable activity that can bring you closer to the children’s families. Today we have a few colourful and fun ideas that will allow children to show their creativity. 

Handprint Dinosaur 

What you’ll need:

• White Card 
• Green Card
• Green Paint 
• Sharpie Marker
• Googly Eyes
• Scissors
• Glue

Method 

1. Draw a dinosaur outline on your green card and cut it out. Glue this to the white card, leaving enough room above for handprints. 
2. Set out some green paint and allow children to dip their hand in and place it on the dinosaur’s back to create spines. 
3. Glue googly eyes on the face, draw a smile, and then write above the dinosaur ‘Daddy, you’re roarsome!’

Paper Fries Bouquet

What you’ll need:

• Yellow Card
• Red Card
• Scissors 
• Sharpie Marker 
• Glue
• Googly Eyes
• Orange Card 

Method 

1. Cut out 2 red ‘tumbler’ shapes. Glue the first to your orange card, and then glue the bottom and side edges of the second one directly on top of the first. Leave to dry. 
2. Once dry, add googly eyes and a smiley face to your fries box. 
3. Next, cut the yellow card into thick strips. Write a kind word on each to describe your father figure for example ‘strong’, ‘funny’, ‘smart’ etc. This is a good way to encourage a child’s literacy skills. 
4. Slot the yellow fries into your red card to create a ‘bouquet’ of fries. 
5. Write underneath ‘daddy, i think you are…’ and point an arrow towards the fries. 

Rawrsome Handprint Lion

What you’ll need:

• White card 
• Brown Card
• Orange paint 
• Brown paint 
• Sharpie 
• Scissors
• Glue

Method 

1. Add some orange paint to a plate and allow your child to place their hand in and print the hand on some white card. 
2. Rotate the card so that the hand is facing downward and use brown paint to draw a tail on one of the fingers. 
3. Cut a ‘mane’ out of brown card. This can almost be similar to a flower shape. 
4. Paint a circle with orange paint inside the ‘mane’. Once dry, add some eyes, a nose, and a smile with a sharpie. 
5. Glue the brown card to the palm of the hand. 
6. Write the message ‘Dad, you’re RAWRSOME’ underneath!

Barbecue Dad Design

What you’ll need:

• White card 
• Black card 
• Red paint 
• Orange paint 
• Yellow paint 
• Sharpie 
• Scissors 
• Glue 

Method 

1. Cut a black semi circle out of paper and glue it straight side up onto your white card. 
2. Draw a spatula with your sharpie next to the semicircle, and draw three ‘legs’ for your barbecue grill coming down from your semicircle. 
3. On a plate, add a stripe of yellow, then orange, then red paint. Press down into it with your hand and you should end up with every colour on your hand. 
4. Press your hand down, fingers up, towards the top of your semicircle – this is to create flames coming out of your grill. 
5. Repeat a few times to create a fun pattern. 
6. Write the message ‘Daddy’s favourite grilling partner’ underneath. 

Rocket Ship Handprint

What you’ll need:

• White card 
• Red card 
• Blue card
• Yellow card
• Blue paint 
• Sharpie 
• Scissors
• Glue 

Method 

1. Place some blue paint on a plate and allow your child to press it down onto their hand and place a handprint on the whtie card. 
2. Cut out 4 yellow stars, 3 blue circles, and 2 red triangles – cutting one of the triangles in half lengthwise. 
3. Rotate the hand so it is palm side up.
4. Glue the first triangle to the top of the hand as the rocket’s top. 
5. Glue the split triangle on each side of the rocket as wings. 
6. Glue the blue circles down the centre of the rocket as windows. 
7. Glue the yellow stars around the page. 
8. Write the message ‘Daddy, I love you to the stars and back!’

Try out some of these fun card design ideas this week at your nursery setting or home for Father’s Day!

Once you’ve created your crafts why not video record the child wishing their father a Happy Father’s Day. If you use iConnect, you could upload the video as a ‘moment’ to iConnect and schedule the event for this Sunday so that the notification will come through to the parent/carer on Sunday.