Handprint Horse Craft for Preschoolers
Today we share a super cute little handprint horse craft for preschoolers! Love the combination of handprints and craft sticks to make these little cuties! The handprint becomes your horses mane and the popsicle sticks are a great way to explore triangles and discuss shapes with your toddlers and preschoolers! Be sure to add this horse activity to any Horse Crafts you are planning!
Learn objectives for this Simple Horse Craft:
First and foremost, this little horse craft is of course meant to be FUN! That is always the primary objective of all our crafts here on Red Ted Art, however with this craft you can also:
- Introduce simple counting (1, 2 and 3 for the craft sticks)
- Discuss shapes (the triangle and how many sides a triangle has)
- Discuss colors – in our example it is “just” brown, but of course you can make your little horse craft any color you wish
- Scissor handling skills – cutting straight lines of the triangle though with younger kids you may want to help cut out the handprint, as well as the eyes and ears.
Supplies needed for your Craft stick horse craft:
- Craft sticks – we used medium sized craft sticks, but experiment with what you have and use some that “fit” with your child’s hands. If the craft sticks are very large, you may want to use two handprint cut outs for the horse’s mane. If they are small, you may want to curl the finger tips of your handprint cut outs more!
- Paint (or you can leave the craft sticks plain)
- Paper or card in your preferred horse color (e.g. if you are making these of the Year of the Horse, you may want to make these in red or vibrant yellow!)
- Paper for your handprint cut outs in the desired colors
- Scrap paper for eyes
- Pen, scissors and glue stick!
We have both a quick How To Video for you to check out, or follow the step by step instructions below!
How to make your Handprint Horse Craft with your Preschooler
As mentioned, begin by painting your craft sticks if you wish to paint them. As you see here we have used jumbo craft sticks, to fit the main better. But I reckon any craft sticks will work. We have done other triangle craft stick crafts, where we left the sticks unpainted, and they still look great! So it really is a personal choice (see our Handprint Angels as examples).
Once painted and dried.. the easiest way to get your triangle and paper to fit perfectly, is to glue your craft sticks straight onto the paper. You may want to lay them out first. You can have the craft sticks overlapping at one end (a bit more secure) as in this image here, or you can have them touching (again, as we did with the handprint angel). Both work and it is a question of preference and size.
Once the craft sticks are glue in place and dried, cut out the triangle! Your preschooler can have a go at this. It is a great opportunity to cut out straight lines.
Now it to get your horse features ready.
Outline your child’s hand on horse mane colored paper and cut. As mentioned, you may wish to cut out two hands and make the main thicker.
You will also need an eye (cricle) and and ear (tear drop).
Glue the handprint cut out to the back of the horse head triangle. As mentioned, you can glue two hands if you wish.
Carefully curl the handprint mane finger tips down to shape them into the horse’s mane.
Add your ears and eyes. You can also add a nostril with a pen!
Finished! You have made your super cute triangle horse craft! Perfect for preschoolers and toddlers. I love the handprint element to the mane – as it turns this cute little craft into a lovely keepsake horse craft too! Perfect for craft for the Kentucky Derby or for the Year of the Horse with preschoolers.
Happy Making!
If you are looking for more Horse Themed Crafts, we have a lovely collection for you here (ahem, these are both the SAME collection, just highlighting that they are suited as a general horse craft collection, or for the Year of the Horse too!):
