Every summer I have the kids make some kind of remembrance item for their time at daycare. Last year the kids decorated t-shirts with Sharpie markers, the year before they made books. This year I decided on a canvas painting after they commented how I never hung their works of art in my living room.
It was quite simple: two days before painting day, I painted a base coat on the canvas. Then we chose our paint colors based on the colors in the painting that adorned the wall before the daycare painting went up. I had initially planned on having the kids use all of these colors for hand prints, but decided to make this painting a bit different than our Family Hand Print Painting.
I grabbed 3 bottle caps within reach (a milk cap, a 2 liter pop bottle cap, and an empty paint bottle cap) and had the kids make dots all over the canvas.
We let the dots dry for a couple of hours before starting in with the hand prints. I had every child in my care that day make three hand prints. A couple of the kids refused to do it as they don't like paint on their hands. The other kids loved it and enjoyed watching their group art work come together.
The painting turned out great! The kids love seeing their masterpiece each day on the living room wall--and bonus that it semi-matches a few of the colors in my living room. I plan on keeping it on my living room wall throughout this summer and you can bet I'll hang it back up in the summer's to come. It's a summer to remember.