Father’s Day
Father’s Day is on the 16th June 2013 for the United Kingdom, United States and Canada and on the 1st September 2012 for Australia and New Zealand.
Below are a few fun activities for the children to learn about Father’s Day and to make special personal gifts and cards for daddies and grandads to truly make their day special and that they will love. Suitable and adaptable for all ages.
Hand Print Card
Fold a piece of card in half to make the base for the card. Make your child’s handprint using paint (perhaps daddy’s favourite colour paint). Once dry cut out the handprint. Next draw and cut out a heart and ask the child to decorate the heart. This can be through colouring it, painting it, material collage or finger printing. Once dry stick the heart on the card first, then place the hand on top to make it look like the hand is holding the heart. Inside the card you can write a message for the daddy or grandad. If the child is old enough they can sign the card by writing their own name and even daddy’s or grandad’s name too. Another option is to use a highlighter for the name and then ask the child to write over it.
Football Card
Fold a piece of card in half to make the card base. Cover the card all over with glue. Stick on the bits of string to the card to make a net. Cut out a white circle. Either cut out black paper hexagons and ask the child to put the hexagons on to the circle or using a potato print make a hexagon shape and dip into black paint, this will make the football. It doesn’t have to be neat. Once the football is dry stick it on the card base. Another version of this card is to cut out a circle from white paper and screw up tiny little balls of black tissue paper and ask the child to glue the tissue paper balls on. This is a great fine motor skills activity for the hands and fingers.
Car Card
Draw out a basic car outline, 2 circles for wheels and 2 windows on to coloured paper, then cut them all out. Ask your little one to place and stick the paper cut outs to make a car, show them how to do it first then scramble up the pieces again so they can do it themselves. Once it’s all stuck down they can add detail to the car using crayons or felt tips such as doors, steering wheel, or even daddy/grandad driving the car if they wish.
Tool Box card
Take a large piece of coloured card and fold each end to meet in the middle, so that you have 2 small rectangle areas and one large rectangle in the middle. This is the base for the tool box. Cut out a handle shape out of card and glue it to the top of the card. Next cut out a small rectangle to make the catch for the tool box and glue one half of it to the top flap. For the inside of the tool box, draw and cut out a saw shape and hammer shape, or any tools you like. Ask the child to decorate them by colouring them in. Glue one to the top section of the card and one in the bottom leaving the middle section to write your message.
Dad Collage
Draw out the name Dad/Daddy/ Grandad on to a piece of paper and ask your little one to stick on different materials inside each letter using glue. You could use sweet wrappers, tissue paper, coloured paper, fabric, ribbon, anything that can be cut up or tore up into little pieces.
Dad Photo Collage
Draw out the name you wish to use Dad is the easiest as it has less letters so less photos are needed. Try to join each letter together so when they are cut out they stay together. Tip: make the top semi circle section or triangle section of the A letter slightly bigger to fit a photo inside and the same with the letter D making the inside part bigger. Find three photos or as many as you need for each letter. Cut out the letters and the inside part of each letter. Before sticking the photos on ask your little one to collage each letter using different types of material. Look at the activity above. Once dry trim off any edges of material to make the name clearer then turn the name over. Very carefully stick on the photos so they show through the holes of each letter. The photos could be of the little one and daddy. Once the photos are stuck down you can add a piece of ribbon to the top of the name so it can be hung up.
King’s Crown
Here is a crown we have made before to give you some inspiration.
Make daddy or grandad a king for the day. Take a long strip of card or paper big enough to fit around their heads. Cut out a zig zag edge on one side. Ask the little one to decorate the crown perhaps painting it in their favourite colour. Take some cotton wool and add a little ball of wool to each point of the zig zag and a strip of cotton wool for the bottom straight edge. To make it more special make some jewels to stick on the crown out of coloured paper or sweet wrappers. Once dry cellotape the crown up to fit around daddy’s/ grandad’s head.
Another version of the crown is to add their name- daddy grandad to the crown and decorate each letter.
Medal
Cut out a circle piece of card. Cut out the number 1 shape. Ask your little one to decorate the circle then glue on the number 1. If the child is older they can draw on the number 1 themselves. Next take a long piece of ribbon, long enough to be able to go around daddy’s neck and stick it to the back of the medal.
Dad Cupcakes
Cook time: 15-20 min
Serves: Makes 12
For the cakes:
- 125 g butter softened
- 125 g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 150 g self-raising flour
- 3 tbsp milk
To Decorate:
Icing sugar
Water
Blue food colouring
White and Yellow ready made Icing
Jam
Icing writing pens
Blue sweet decorations
- Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Take a 12-hole muffin try and put paper cases in to each hole.
- Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, then add the vanilla and beat until well combined. Sift the flour and fold in while adding the milk. Stir until almost smooth.
- Divide the mixture between the muffin holes/ paper cases then bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to sit for 10 minutes in the tray. Turn the cakes out onto a wire rack to cool.
- Once cool, you can decorate the cakes.
Rosette
Cut out a wavy circle from a piece of card. Similar to the medal activity decorate the wavy circle however you wish, we used shiny materials to decorate ours. Next cut out a circle from white paper and stick a number 1 shape to it or draw one on. Stick on 2 pieces of ribbon to the bottom of the wavy circle then glue the circle on top. Roll up a piece of cellotape to stick on the rosette to daddy or use a safety pin if you prefer. Some craft shops you can buy badge pin backs.
Bookmark
Cut out a rectangle piece of card and draw on the word dad/daddy/grandad on to it using a highlighter, ask the child to write over the word using a pen. Decorate the bookmark however you wish- paints, colouring collage. For the bottom of the bookmark, cut up some strips of ribbon or coloured paper and glue it to the bottom edge of the bookmark. If you have more time to make it add a photo to the bookmark to make it more personalised.
Handprint Photo Frame
Make lots of handprints using different coloured paints. Once they are dry cut them out. Take a paper plate and cut out the centre part, this will be to put a photo inside. Place the handprints around the edge of the paper plate and stick down with glue. Next find a photo to place in the centre and fix it to the paper plate frame. To hang the frame up add some ribbon to the top of the frame in a loop and stick down both ends.
Paperweight
Find a large pebble (perhaps have a beach trip collecting things they can find) and paint a picture on it. After it has dried carefully spread over a thin layer of glue. Once that has dried it can be given to daddy to place on his papers.
