Veteran Thank You Cards : Elmer’s Early Learners Craft Tutorial #EarlyLearnersAcademy

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Elmer’s asked me to share a 4th of July themed craft with you to keep little ones busy with some summer crafting fun. I was excited to share this craft idea with my daughter’s preschool class just before Memorial Day. We made veteran thank you cards, which really are a wonderful craft any time of year, but especially fun for Memorial Day, 4th of July and Veterans Day.

Elmers_4thJuly_TitleThe entire class was excited to use the new Elmer’s Early Learners Academy glue sticks.

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Features They Loved:

  • The triangular shape prevented their glue from rolling onto the floor (something both the students AND the teacher was thankful for).
  • The triangular shape made it easy for little hands to use.
  • The purple color allowed them to see where they’d already applied the glue.

SUPPLIES:

  • Elmer’s Early Learners Academy glue stick and/or glue pen
  • Pre-folded 4″x6″ note cards and envelopes (of course you can make your own card blank if you prefer)
  • Scrapbook, construction or card stock paper in a variety of patriotic colors/patterns
  • Star punch
  • Star stickers
  • Glitter (always optional depending on the level of clean up you want!)

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INSTRUCTIONS:

Precut your scrapbook paper to fit your 4″x6″ note card. I provided a variety of patterns so they could chose something that they liked best. Pre-cut some smaller strips of the same patterned paper or solid colored card stock.

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Use your Elmer’s Early Learners Academy glue stick or glue pen to adhere the 4″x6″ background paper onto your blank note card. Encourage kids to layer smaller strips of paper as an accent color/paper if they’d like.

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Embellish by letting kids punch stars from a contrasting paper and gluing to the card. Creativity is encouraged here. There are no rules.

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IDEAS:

If you prefer to do more of a directed design here’s an idea. Make your card look like an American flag. Find red and white striped scrapbook paper and cut so the stripes sit horizontally on the card. Cut a square of blue card stock or construction paper for the upper left corner and glue on. Punch white stars and glue on or let kids color them on with white chalk if you don’t have a star punch. See what these kids came up with below!

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My daughter’s teacher had the wonderful idea to display these cards at our local VFW post so many of the local veterans could appreciate them. I love that each child did something unique with their card designs.

Triangular in shape, the Elmer’s Early Learners glue stick and glue pen help preschoolers by encouraging the development of critical fine motor skills, including the precise pincer grasp, the pre-writing tripod grasp and active manipulation of objects, which are highly predictive of academic success in elementary school reading and math. The products also encourage creativity and imaginative play, which are critical to cognitive development in a young mind.

For more information including playtime tips, advice, lessons, craft projects and more please visit Elmer’s Early Learners.

BUY IT:

Elmer’s Early Learners glue stick and glue pen are now available at your select Target and Wal-Mart stores, and Michaels stores nationwide (MSRP $2.19).

 

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Elmer’s Early Learner’s Academy. Craft tutorial and all thoughts remain my own.

8 Comments

  1. I’m glad the kids are given a thank you project for the veterans, it’s great to teach them this kind of gratitude towards veterans early on.

  2. This is a great idea, and the kids looked like they had a lot of fun. The cards are very attractive too. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Great DIY craft for the kids, i love doing stuff like this with them. Also it’s a nice way to teach them to say thanks. Love this idea.

  4. now that is a nice thing to do,,going to a nursing home and giving to the Veterans would be great

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