Kissing Hand on the First Day of Kindergarten

This is our First Day of Kindergarten Project.  After we have read The Kissing Hand and have gone on our scavenger hunt tour of the school, we work on these booklets throughout the first day.  This booklet is actually made up of 4- 8.5x11 papers that I ran through the copy machine so they were printed on 17x22 inch paper.   I then fold the copies into booklets. 

I was fortunate to have the help of the art teacher this year while making hand prints of the students.  This really sped up the process, and I really appreciated her help!  I have made the hand prints with both a stamp pad and tempera paint.  Overall, I would recommend the tempera paint-it made a really nice hand print and dried fairly quickly.  I used a wide paint brush to paint the palms of my students' hands.  The stamp pad also made a nice hand print, although I found the details to be fainter (which could have just been my stamp pad).  The tempera paint was washable and came completely off the students' hands.

This project has an underlying purpose for me.  I get an indication of how and if students are able to write their names, and I get a first hand look at their pre-writing skills by the types of drawings that they make of their families.  I can begin to make some observations of what stage of development they are in with their writing skills  by the types of drawings they make.  I also get a look at their coloring skills, how they hold their pencils and crayons, and I also get a picture of how well students are able to follow directions and work independently as I am working with other students.

This booklet is sent home with students on the very first day of school so students have something to help prompt them to talk to their families about what they did in school on the first day of Kindergarten.  I also send home homework for the families, which will be described in a different post.

A description of each page of the booklet is listed in the captions.




This the front cover of our booklet we create on the first day of school.  Students write their first names and I fill in the date on which they began Kindergarten.  This page was created using my PrintShop program and picture I found of the book on www.Amazon.com

This is actually the back page of the booklet.  I use this coloring sheet as a buffer for students to work on as they are waiting patiently for me as I am helping students create their hand prints on the inside section of the booklet.  This coloring sheet is available at:  http://www.wiseowlfactory.com/BookaDay/archives/3088

These are the inside two pages of the first day of school booklet.  On the left, the students dictate to the teacher how they felt on the first day of school, they write their names in the first box, then we used tempera paint to coat the students hands and pressed a hand print in the middle square (I've also used a large stamp pad for this activity), and finally they draw a picture of their families.  After the paint has dried, and hands have been washed, we take a paper heart that I have already cut out with the Cricut and we in dramatic fashion give it a kiss, and glue it in the center of the hand prints that we made. On the right page, there is a poem that has been around for a long time with the Chester theme and about what the hand prints on the left symbolize as we give this "gift" to our parents.  I created these pages using my good old PrintShop program and clip art I found on the Internet.  Hearts for the inside of the palms were cut with my Cricut Expression using the Plantin School Book cartridge with a setting of 1.5 inches.