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Back To School Arts & Crafts Ideas

    

Chalkboard

 Color with chalk on to black paper. Then add brown edging.

 

Pencil

Have the children sponge paint with yellow on to white paper, Cut out a pencil
 shape and have the children add an eraser to the end and lead to the other end.

 

Bubble Letters Collage

Before school starts write each child's name in "bubble letters" to give them
 space inside each letter. They can draw things they like in each letter of their
 name or cut out pictures from magazines.  To make a collage that tells about them.

 

Welcome Wreath

Put toilet paper rolls, paint and brushes on table. When each child comes to
 the table; let him paint a roll. When child is finished, stand roll up on end
 to dry completely. When dry, string rolls on piece of yarn and tie.

 

       

Self Portrait

Have each child create a self portrait. Then put it away with the date on it
 and send it home the last day of school with a portrait they make that day.
 It is really a neat way to see how far they have come!

 

Cutting & Pasting

Emphasize the safe use of scissors.  Let the children cut pictures out
 of magazines and paste them onto construction paper.  Use the
 opportunity to observe the children's cutting skills.

 

First-Day Necklaces

On the first day of school, assess your youngsters' color-recognition and listening skills
 in this activity disguised as an art project. Give each child a glue stick and a strip of
 construction paper in each of the basic colors. Strip-by-strip, step-by-step, tell
 youngsters how to make paper chains. As they work, make mental notes of students'
 color-recognition and listening abilities. When all the strips have been used, connect the
 ends of each students chain using a strip on which you've written "I was a good listening"
 or "I've had a good day." As students head home wearing their first-day necklaces,
you'll head back to your lesson plans with a little more information to go on.

 

Back To School Name Bracelets

Materials Needed:
Large Beads with letters
Elastic stretch threads
Pinch paper clips
Muffin tin paper cup
Markers

Directions:
Have the children pick out the letters to their name and place in the paper cup.
 Help the children attach a pinch paper clip to one end of their bracelet string
 as a holder. children may need assistance in  threading the letter beads on
 the string in the correct order, holding the free end up so the beads do not fall
 off of the string. Once the letters have been threaded, the paper clip
can be removed and the ends tied together to form a bracelet.

 

Tote Bag

Buy a plain canvas tote bag with a handle. Cut some apples, potatoes, onions or kitchen
 sponges into various shapes. Pour some fabric paint into aluminum pie tins, or sturdy paper
 plates. Dip your "utensils" into the paint and create some "Back-to-School" art on your
 tote bag! When it dries it will make a great bag to use for carrying books and lunches!

 

Book Covers

Using the utensils and paint above, make designs on brown postal wrapping paper. When
 it dries, you can cut the paper and use scotch tape to wrap your books with your artwork!

 

Lunch Sacks

Don't put the paint away yet! Decorate some plain brown lunch
 sacks with colorful paint designs! Lunches will never be lost again!

 

 

School Work Holder

A special place for storing school projects.  Find a box that you think will be a
 good size for school "take-home" projects. (A shirt box? A pizza box? A shoe box?)
 Paint the outside of the box using white tempera paint. When the paint has completely
 dried you are ready to decorate! Mix some craft glue with a bit of water in a sturdy
 paper plate. Using a paint brush apply the glue to tissue paper strips and shapes.
 Arrange on the box. You can also paint over the tissue paper to make sure that
 it stays secure. When finished you'll have a colorful, homemade school work holder!

 

See - Through Schoolhouse

For each child make a schoolhouse pattern on construction paper; then cut out.
 Using a craft knife, cut out the windows and door on each schoolhouse.
 Then have each child glue a piece of colored cellophane behind the door
 and windows on the cutout. After the glue dries, encourage the children to color their
 schoolhouse and glue glitter on the bell. When that glue dries, shake off the excess glitter.
 Mount the schoolhouses on your classroom windows. Your students will soon discover that
 they can look out their schoolhouse windows and doors and see a world of another color!

 

It's the Bus

To prepare, cut out a supply of white construction paper squares and black construction
 paper circles to resemble bus windows and wheels. Then mix a few drops of orange
 fingerpaint into yellow fingerpaint to achieve a school bus-yellow hue. Invite each youngster
 to paint a sheet of fingerpaint paper with the mixture. When the paint dries, use a marker to
 round the top corners of each paper so that the page resembles the body of a bus. Have
 each child cut away the corners, then glue on the window and wheel cutouts. When the
 glue is dry, encourage each child to draw faces in the windows to represent himself and his
 friends. Follow up this art activity with a rousing round of "The Wheels On the Bus."

 

School Bus Craft

Materials Needed:
 Milk Carton (small pint size works best)
Construction Paper
Markers and/or Paint 
4 Bottle Caps or Lids from a Milk Jugs 
Glue and/or Tape 

Instructions:
Paint the 4 bottle or milk caps black to make the wheels for the bus.
 You can also cut small circles from black construction paper and glue the
 to the outside of the caps. If you can't have bottle or milk caps, try to find
 some big buttons, or anything else that is small and round; even small
 circles cut out of construction paper will work.  Cut a piece of yellow
 construction paper to cover the entire outside of the milk carton. Glue
 or tape it around the milk carton. Now, using the markers or paint,
 draw the details on the bus (windows and even kids in the windows, etc)...
 Once you get it decorated the way you want it, you are ready to attach the
 wheels.  Here is the tricky part... Glue the wheels into place! If you are using
 the bottle or milk caps they will be heavy and you will have to work to find a
 good position to lay your bus until the wheels dry. You will want most of the
 wheel attached to the bus body with very little hanging over the bottom edge.
 If you want, glue on the wheels for one side at a time and let it dry laying on the side.

 

School Buses

Make school buses out of yellow construction paper. You can have
 the outline of the bus drawn ahead of time and allow the children to
 practice their cutting. They can glue on paper wheels. If you have pictures
 of the child, you can cut out the child's head and have them glue it in the
 window of the bus or they can just draw some children's heads.
 Could also practice the child's bus number by printing it on the bus.

 

Sponge Painting

I cut out school shapes out of sponges (school house,
 pencil, bell, bus) and then let the children sponges paint.

 

Kissing Hand Heart Handprints

Read The Kissing Hand by Audra Penn and have the kids make
 handprints with a heart in the middle to give to their parents.

 

School Box Craft

Makes for a great first day art craft
1 school box per child (Plastic or Card board)
1 pk. of stickers per child (usually have the parent supply)
1 permanent marker-Black
Sticker name tag

 

Back to School People

Preschool and kindergarten children become excited about pre-school when
 they recognize their names and teachers involve the family with
 the class during this beginning of the school year craft activity.

Materials:
Large poster board.

Description:
We always have our Open House before school starts to give children a chance to meet
 their teachers and explore their classroom.  On that night, I also give each child a large
 poster board cut-out of a person with instructions for them (and family) to decorate it
 to look like the child.  They bring it back on the first day of school and I hang them
 all along one wall with their names underneath.  They stay there all year and get
 sent home on graduation day.

Comments:
Parents and children loved this!  The kids love to point
 out themselves when we have guests in our classroom!

 

Back to School Blessing Bag Craft

Materials Needed:
Paper lunch bags
and the items listed below.

Directions:
Place the following items in the bag:

1. A tissue to remind you to wipe away your tears or someone else's.
2. Star stickers to remind you of the One who created them. (Gen.1:14-15)
3. A toothpick to remind you to pick out the good qualities in others. (Matt. 7:1)
4. A rubber band to remind you to be flexible. Things might not go
 the way you want, but they will work out (Rom. 8:28).
5. A Band-Aid to remind you to heal hurt feelings, yours or someone else's. (Col. 3:12-14)
6. A pencil to remind you to list your blessings from God. (Eph. 1:3)
7. An eraser to remind you that everyone makes mistakes and that's OK. (Gen. 50:15-21)
8. Chewing gum to remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything. (Phil. 4:13) And to remind you that there is Jesus who sticks closer than a brother. (Prov. 18:24)
9. A mint to remind you that YOU are worth a mint to Your Heavenly Father. (John 3:16)
10. A candy Hug to remind you that everyone needs a hug everyday. (1 John 4:7)
11. A Bible verse bookmark to remind you to keep God's Word in your heart. (Psalm 119:11)

Make a small "Back to School Blessings Bag" tag to place on the outside of the bag.
 Type up the list above and include it in the bag. Or cut the list apart and
 tie the item name with the words and bible verse to each item separate

 

 

Personalized Pencils

Materials Needed:
pencil, pipe cleaner, alphabet beads.

Directions:
Have child spell out their name with the alphabet beads. Make an arch with
 the beads in the middle then wrap the end around the top of the pencil.
 I personally would hot glue it in place after the child is done so it doesn't come off.

 

Fun Back To School Craft Ideas

I bought my students notebooks and gave them old jeans. old dress shirts, and old t-shirts
 and let them cut them up and glue them on their notebooks.  They loved being able to
 decorate their notebooks so they were individualized.  You could also do that with pencil
 boxes or pencil bags.  Also have the children make bead buddies or perler (fuse)
 bead key chain to decorate their backpacks.

 

Open House Idea

One year we had our preschool children bring in an old pair of pants and a shirt that
 they no longer wore. The children stuffed these with newspaper. We attached the pants
 to the shirts and then added paper bag heads that the children had decorated with markers
 and yarn. The evening of open house each of the "stuffed children" were in a chair at the
 table. In front of them we placed the artwork of each of the corresponding children!

 

School House Craft

Cut out a red schoolhouse...or have the kids cut it out if they can...
buy stickers of school supplies (or cut school supplies out of
 newspaper ads), glue school supplies on school house.

 

School Bus Craft

Dot to dot school bus or cut school bus out of yellow construction paper.  Cut out 3 or 4
 windows on the bus and take a pic of the child, put childs pic in one window and cut out
 children's faces in the others or their friends pics from your group.  Glue school bus on
 large piece of construction paper and make roads with white chalk.  Glue or draw
stop lights cut from magazines....put sticker trees...etc.

 

Decorative Pen / Pencil

Give the children a pen or pencil to decorate with embroidery thread.  I used tacky
 glue to glue the thread to the top of the pencils then put a eraser on the top to hold
 it in place.  Then have the children wrap the thread around until they get to the end. 
 I then glue the end and put a clothespin to hold it in place until it dries. 

another way to decorate the pens or pencil is with flowers and flower tape
and the last the way to decorate the pens or pencils is to roll them in glue
 then in seed beads and let the dry some other crafts are to let the children
 decorate pencil bags with fun foam letters or shapes. Also making
 a summer journal to remember all the fun of the summer.

 

Color Bear - Class Mascot

Let each child color a bear cutout (for class mascot) for each child’s picture on the wall.

 

Handprint Artwork Portfolios

Each month have preschoolers render paintings using their handprints or footprints -
 for example, a handprint sunflower (September), a footprint scarecrow (October),
 and a handprint gobbler (November). At the end of the year, bind each
 child's paintings between a personalized cover titled "Me at (child's age)"
  Then send home the portfolios of artwork for families to treasure.

 

Monthly Headbands

Make a class supply of each month's calendar header.  Then, on the first school day of
 each month, have each child color and cut out a copy of the corresponding header.  Glue
 each child's work to a construction paper strip cut to fit around the child's head.  Then
 staple the ends of the strip and invite the youngsters to sport his/her monthly headband.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-K Fun Theme Pages are for educational reference only! 
No copyright infringement is intended.
I do not claim any of these as my own ideas.  
They are shared from friends and fellow group members.  
Thanks for sharing all your great ideas!

   
   

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