At 2.5 years old, my son doesn't really have a concept of what Veteran's Day is all about. He knows that mom didn't have work and there were a few mentions of a parade throughout the day, but on a whole the meaning of the day is exceedingly vague. Much like our perspective on teaching kindness, we feel that whether he fully understands it or not, it is important to do something regarding the armed forces on Veteran's Day. In light of this, we decided to do a fun art project for toddlers.
Starting last year, we have created holiday cards in November to be sent to those who won't be receiving any at Christmas. Last year, we made cards which were sent to nursing homes. This year, we created cards to be sent to troops who will be on active duty at Christmas. Because my little guy is still pretty much scribbling and not so much drawing, we came up with several different designs that worked for him.
Here's what we used:
Design #1 (Green Card):
For this card, I drew the outline of a Christmas tree and T "decorated" it with crayon. After taking this picture, I did go back over the outline in marker, so you can tell there's a tree back there and not just scribbles.
Design #2 (Red Card on Left):
For this card, I did all the tree decorating, but T told me what colors to use and how he wanted it decorated. We used a combination of markers and crayons.
Design #3 (Red Card on Top):
For this card, we pulled out some of our holiday stickers and T selected and placed all the stickers on the cover of the card. I was pretty impressed with his straight line of ginger bread men down the center with the puppies surrounding them.
Design #4 (Blue Card)
For this card, I traced T's hand white a white crayon and then filled it in. We then decorated each finger with snowmen. If your child is as picky as mine is about getting their hands dirty, this is a great alternative to the paint hand print!
While we did this project on Veteran's Day, it's a great project for anytime in November. This is where we will be sending our cards:
http://operationmailfromhome.50megs.com/whats_new_1.html
I found out about this organization through the pageant I participated in over the summer. As you can see in the link, they also accept blank and signed Christmas cards. So, if you have any cards left over from prior years, this is a great use for them!
Tons of ideas for the perfect female superhero birthday party.