Pre-K Craft Project

The Oriental Trading they-all-look-exactly-the same assembled crafts are the ones that get tossed in my house. The ones we keep the longest either have a magnet on the back, a photo of my kid on it, or their hand prints.

No clue what you have in mind, but we have a cross on our fridge that one of the kids made at church a few years ago during the Easter egg hunt day. It's simply 2 popsicle sticks that were already hot glued together when we got there, then a peel and stick magnet on the back, and then the foam stickers. It was a super simple craft all ages could do. But they also had colored sharpie markers there. They were supposed to use them to put their name on the back, but the older kids used them to decorate the cross, too, so they were all unique.

My daughter's pre-K art class made beautiful crosses. They were just plain wooden crosses, probably from hobby lobby and the kids glued pretty rocks on the front. I think the rocks on my daughter's cross resembled turquoise.

Assuming you are dealing with 4/5 year olds, you could do something that involves painting - I keep all my kids "painted" projects. Just make sure to use washable paint and old "grown-up" t-shirts as smocks.

My kids just did foam stickers on foam eggs. I'll keep those until Easter. I am not sure if there are religious themed foam stickers.

You could also put an "expiration" date on the project. Tell the kids that their project should be displayed until April 4th, longer if they want. If you make that point, it may stick around for longer.

Don't know if it's possible, but can you do a project that can be brought back to add to the following Sunday? (may just be too much work).This type of project might be better suited for the weeks of Lent.

They have a ton of stuff on www.Orientaltrading.com. I don't know if there is time to order stuff but you can get great ideas and then go to a store to buy the stuff.

I love www.daniellesplace.com; it has awesome christian crafts and bible lessons for that matter.

This year we did the lacing tomb craft; very simple, involves lacing, writing "He is Risen", and decorating the paper plate tomb.

We also do the 'stained' glass cross craft. White printer paper with a stained glass print on it (ours is basic); we colored it in with highlighters and cut it in an arched type shape or whatever you want, backed it to black construction paper and put a black die cut cross on the stained glass paper....very cute.

we also are doing the Easter windsock. Print the template out, have the children watercolor the page. When dry, cut it out, back to construction paper, add streamers, a hanger from yarn and that is it......

I have done so many from that site........one year we did the container garden with the cross; we did the 'glowing' cross and laminated them so they could withstand some water. We made a greenhouse garden from 2-liter bottles, and put the cross in the middle.

Hope those help.....it is hard to explain some of these but hopefully you get the idea. Good luck.

Hi T.-
The crafts that last around my house are... anything that has been laminated. While I appreciate the macaroni necklaces, vases, etc. we have a dog that will eat anything made from food items. I always liked the homemade placemats: a picture that has been laminated. My son also made a very cool tray that he still uses when eating away from the dining table, but those took a day to do the picture and then some sort of heating process for it to stick to the plastic tray.
Good luck, have fun!
S.
PS Anything with glitter gets thrown away at my house too. It just makes a mess that you are cleaning up for days/weeks and sometimes years!