Earth Handprint Craft Tutorial

Exploring Countries and Cultures Week 1, Day 2 the art project says to make a John 3:16 poster. Since we already have a cute print of John 3:16 in our schoolroom, I wanted to do something else. I was searching on Pinterest and found a craft similar to this for an Earth Day activity. It appears that site has been taken down and I've had several requests for details on this project, so I wanted to share them here.

I used the top of a container to draw a large circle on a piece of heavy card stock (construction paper would work well too).

We painted the circles blue and let them dry completely. We did this in the morning to allow for drying time.

Then we used green paint for the land masses. Don't worry about making it look exactly like the continents. The older kids might be able to get a general shape of a continent, but perfection isn't the goal here. I did encourage them to make at least one go "off the edge" so that it looks like it was wrapping around the side of the Earth. Again, let it dry completely. We did this just before lunch to allow for dry time.

(Sorry, I didn't get a picture of this step!)

Then we painted our hands black and made a handprint on the Earth. We talked about how God sent Jesus for each of them and he cares about every person on the Earth. Let it dry completely before cutting it out.

Once it's dry, cut out the Earth and glue onto construction paper. We chose black. I also typed up John 3:16 and had them glue it at the bottom. You could opt to have the kids write it on paper and glue it on.

I have these hanging in our window right now and plan to leave them up a while, but when I take them down: I will have them put them in their Exploring Countries and Cultures Notebook.

Happy Homeschool Crafting!

Paula