Last year we made flower pedal sun catchers and they were a big hit. This year I wanted to make them again, however I wanted to change the project a little bit. I decided to teach the children how to make a photo transfer using contact paper and a photo copied image.
I use to teach this process to my high school students and continuing ed. adult classes, however I wasn't sure if my preschoolers would have a hard time with it.
Happy to say they did great and loved the process.
To learn how to make the flower pedal sun catcher view my previous post under sun catchers or click here:
To start our project we first had to gather our materials. We took a nature walk around the neighborhood, but we found most of our treasure at Helen's, my next door neighbor. We have visited Helen before, she is 95 and loves it when the little ones visit her. Here are the kids greeting Helen.
Our nature basket filled with treasures
After we collected leaves and flowers, we then went to work on our sun catchers.
The first thing the children did was paint their borders.
Before starting this project I photocopied pictures of the children. You can print them as well, but a photo copied image works better because the ink lifts off the paper surface better.
I also cut the circles of contact paper we would need and placed their pictures on them ahead of time.
The children then took a smooth rock and rubbed it all over their pictures.
This helps the ink to adhere better to the contact paper.
Next, they removed the back of the contact paper and placed it in a bowl of warm water. It stayed in the water for a minute or so, until the paper was wet through.
They then placed the contact paper face down on a towel and began to rub the paper off the back. Here is where the fun and magic began. It was neat for them to see the paper rub away and their faces remain on the contact paper. It takes a couple times of rubbing the paper and re-submerging the paper into the water to clean it completely off.
When they were done with the transfer they stuck it to their borders and started placing flowers on the sticky side.
Once they felt they were done, I then took a piece of contact paper the circumference of the inner circle and placed it down on top of their flower and leaf arrangements. They then took their stones again and rubbed all the air bubbles out and pressed their flowers.
I was only able to capture a couple in a photo before moving onto clean up, but I think they look wonderful and they did just as well as my high school students would have;)
Wow! These are beautiful! What a great project!
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