Crazy Handprints

It's that time of the year!

Every preschool student is making a gift for his/her parent in school. It is something that every preschool teacher has on her mind this time of the year. I think about it throughout the year. But then around November, I really put my nose to the grindstone to finalize my plan. I did adorable handprint calendars last year, but they took up WAY too much time with 6 kids; there was no way was doing it with 27 kids. I decided on making handprints out of dough because I had heard several people mention how their parents still had theirs from preschool and parents mention how they still had their kids' (who are now all grown). It was supposed to be an easy mix of salt, flour, and water. Being extremely messy and drying my hands out and making my nails peel wasn't the hard part. The cooking them for 2-3 hours was the hard part! When I wasn't filling the motor room with smoke because the wax paper touched the side of the oven, I was trying to remember to check on them after school and burning some and not letting some cook long enough. Even today I would have forgotten about them if my assistant hadn't called from home and left me a message at 4:30 reminding me to take them out! But the fun didn't stop there! Then we got to paint them all! And then 3 of them cracked. So then we got to make, cook, and paint 3 new ones. Then a student came back who was off a week and we noticed we forgot one student's, so we got to make, cook, and paint 2 more! But that still isn't it, I went out to the store to find a thick silver paint marker that would write on this surface to write the kids' names and the year on them. We also tied silver ribbon through the holes in each one. The last 2 were baked today....so I am crossing my fingers that they will be fine and we can paint and wrap tomorrow. But...aren't they adorable! I love looking at them and I am so happy we did them!

(P. S. The picture is off center to hide the kids' names on the side)