Hand Print Crafts for Father’s Day

Cards and crafts involving hand prints and footprints are classic for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and they give us a chance to look back through the years and see how much our kids have grown.

They’re also really easy projects to make for Father’s Day, and a great way to do a craft in a classroom without it taking too much time (though cleaning all those little hands and feet is definitely a process). Here are some cute hand and footprint crafts for Father’s Day for you to make with one kid or a bunch.

If you want hand prints without the paint, this handprint Father’s Day grill card from Our Kid Things is a good option. Just grab their template to help you make the pieces of the grill, trace and cut out hands, write a grill pun in the card and you’re all set.

Give dad a high five for all the great work he does with this simple card from Pepper Scraps. Just print, paint and stamp the hand, or trace and color in the hand, and you’re all set.

Crafty Morning is the queen of cute handprint projects. She’s got one where kids use their hands to add spikes to a dinosaur and a super cute pirate that’s shown done with a hand but you could probably do it with a footprint, too, if you’d rather.

And if you need more ideas, check out these cute printables from Mr. Mintz Crafts, which just need to be printed out and have a hand or foot print added to make them reading for giving. These are products that are for sale but definitely worth it for the quick and cute factor. The I love you to the moon and back one is my favorite, but they’re all really cute.

8 Crafts To Preserve Your Child’s Handprints & Footprints

Handprint Heart Cards

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The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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