Often preschool teachers do an activity to mark the beginning of the school year, then a comparison at the end to show a child's progress and growth. A handprint or footprint craft is a good way to not only show the things the child has learned but her physical growth as well. A paint imprint of the child's handprints and footprints on a sheet of paper, either framed with a small poem in the middle or just slipped inside a progress notebook, is a good way to start out the fall classes and will be a keepsake for parents to treasure. Match it to the season by making leaf prints around the borders of the paper.
Turkeys represent fall for most of us as Thanksgiving rolls around. Preschool crafts that are holiday oriented, such as a hand and footprint turkey, make a great way to mark this time of year and celebrate. The child makes a footprint by tracing her foot on construction or white paper. Then she cuts it out. Use the footprint as the turkey body, then create handprint cut outs, as many as desired, for the turkey tail fan. Decorate the turkeys as desired, using plastic, button or painted eyes, glitter paint, crayons or markers. Beaks, wattles and feet can be drawn on or added with cut outs.
Ghosts are a Halloween and fall fixture, and they adapt well to handprint and footprint craft projects. Footprints make a great ghost and can stand alone or be included within a bigger picture. Trace the preschooler's foot on white paper. Cut out the footprint, then add eyes for a cut out ghost to hang. For a messier craft, have the child step in white paint and press her foot on a piece of black paper. The white impression becomes the ghost body, with the toe prints at the bottom, and the picture can be decorated with black crayon for a screaming mouth. Color hollow black eyes or use googly eyes to finish the face. A handprint cut out can be used the same way for a more fringed looking ghost, with the fingerprints facing downward.
Just as the turkey represents fall, reindeer are a token of all things winter and Christmas. The famous Rudolph can be created using handprints, footprints or both. Paper bag reindeer puppets use construction paper hand tracings cut out as antlers. A footprint makes a Rudolph body that can be either a brown paint impression of the foot on paper to decorate, or a construction paper cut out to hang. The handprints are added for antlers on either one of these for a project with both prints in one craft.