DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
You Are My Sunshine Craft

I've had a lot of positive response from people about this craft.  Although it was originally made for mother's day, here are some alternate ideas I received from people who used the site:

• kindergarten graduation gift from children to their parents (at an assembly or graduation tea)
• gift from children to their teacher when the school year is over or when a teacher retires or leaves the school (have the teacher be the sun and all the children be the flowers... make a single collage/card)

Although meant to be a fridge magnet, if you don't have magnet backings, don't worry about it too much.  Use the craft for a card, make a collage/picture from it or just as individual pictures to hang up.  I'm sure everyone will love it no matter how the kids present it!

Materials:

• printer,
• paper,
• scissors,
• something to colour with,
• Magnet backing
• A photograph or hand drawn picture of mom and dad's face or the teacher's face (depending on who you are giving it to) and a photograph or hand drawn picture of the child's face that will fit inside the circle of the flower and the circle of the sun.
• To make the craft sturdier, you can paste the paper template onto a piece of poster board or cardboard before cutting it out.  (Whenever I need poster board, I usually use the cardboard that comes out of nylon stocking packages or empty cereal boxes)

Instructions:

• Print out the template of choice.  Glue the template onto poster board or cardboard if you wish to make the craft sturdier.
• Colour (where appropriate) and cut out the template pieces.  Younger kids may need help with this.
• Cut the pictures out in a circle shape to fit inside the sunflower and the sun.
• Paste mom & dad's picture or the teacher's picture into the sunshine and the child's picture into the sunflower.
• Attach the magnet to the back (most of the magnets from the craft store come with a sticky backing, but if you have one that doesn't use a glue gun to attach)
• When printing the template, make sure to set all your margins to zero so that the page prints properly.
• If you are using the black and white template, print it on yellow coloured construction paper as an alternative to colouring it in.
• Feel free to decorate further with sparkles, sparkle glue, sequins or anything else the kids can think of.

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP in most browsers).

When the children give the gift, make sure they sing!

WORDS TO 
"YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE"

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You never know dear
How much I love you
So please don't take my sunshine away!

(substitute the teacher's name  for the word DEAR in the third last line)

There are more words to the song, but this is a good length for younger children.
 

Template    (color)   or   (B&W)

Printable version of these instructions