Reading The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn is an elementary classroom staple for the first days of school. The Kissing Hand is a lovely story about a young raccoon, Chester, who is starting school. However, he does not want to go! His mom, Mrs. Raccoon, shares a special secret with him to ease his mind. The Kissing Hand reminds him that he is loved when the world feels a little bit scary.
The Kissing Hand is a great book to ease our young learners’ minds, especially at the start of the school year. Be sure to add this book and these activities to your lesson plans for the first week of school!
How To Use The Kissing Hand
After you read The Kissing Hand to your students, you can start the conversation about how it can be scary on the first day of school. One of the challenges of the first week of school is your students might miss their parents or their siblings. Young children may have separation anxiety, especially after being home with family members over the long summer. Let them discuss how they feel on the first day of school and what they do when they are worried. I like to put a heart sticker on each student’s hand to remind them that they are also loved and missed throughout the day, just like little Chester raccoon was in the story.
You can grab heart stickers here.
The Kissing Hand Craft Activities and Poem
After reading the book and having a class discussion about what to do when we feel worried or sad, it is time to create our handprint craft. With this free Kissing Hand poem, students can put their handprint next to it to make the perfect keepsake. To paint a child’s hand, I recommend using a sponge paint brush and painting it with washable tempera paint. The special trick is to NOT let them dip their hand in the paint, but to paint their hand! It is a small tip, but a useful one!
Then, students put their handprints on the poem for a personal touch. For best results, make sure to let them dry throughout the day and away from your students! This makes a fun keepsake craft for the beginning of the school year. Not only does this heartfelt craft make a great keepsake, but also makes a great gift for parents and families for the first day of school.
The Kissing Hand Activities
If you are looking for more activities to go along with your Kissing Hand poem craftivity, make sure to check out these activities in our First Week of First Grade pack and our First Week of Second Grade pack.
First Day Of School Feelings
One activity for after reading The Kissing Hand is to discuss our first day of school feelings. Many students have those first day of school jitters! It is important to talk about how they are feeling and let them know you are feeling all those feelings as well. After discussing feelings with your students, create a graph on big anchor chart paper to show the first day feelings.
The Kissing Hand Hand Craft
Another activity to do to go along with The Kissing Hand is to create this hand craft. Students draw who is important and meaningful to them inside the heart and color. I like to hang these hands on a back to school bulletin board for students to see throughout the school year, or at least for the beginning of the year. If students want to share who they drew and why that person or animal is important to them, this is a good time for sharing. In the past, I have had students draw their mom and dad, their siblings, their aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, and pets!
How Many Hearts?
One last fun activity to go along with The Kissing Hand is this fun, no-prep page. Students get one minute to draw as many hearts as they can! This activity is simply for fun!
More Back To School Activities
Name Crowns – A Name Tag Alternative
Another perfect first day of school activity and fun craft to do with your class is making a name crown! Name crowns are like name tags with a twist. It is a great way for students to get some extra name-writing practice on the first day of school, but it also helps YOU learn their names! Students are practicing skills they learned in previous grades which also helps build fine motor skills. Students use these crowns to practice writing and tracing their first and last names, identifying and counting vowels and consonants, and identifying letters. It is a great activity for back to school for learning names, cutting, coloring, and letter practice and identification.
All About Me Ice Cream Writing Craft
This back to school craft is the perfect activity for the first week of school to get to know your students! Sweeten up your back to school bulletin board with this all about me craft. To make, students build the ice cream sundae with the ice cream scoops and fill in the writing prompts.
Different writing prompts include:
- My favorite food
- This year, I hope
- Over the summer,
- My favorite book
- My favorite hobby
- Something about me
- On my sundae, I like
- My favorite color
- My family
- My friends
This cute activity also comes with a class book for students to fill out. Have your students fill out the All About Me page at home and bring it back for you to include in a binder or booklet. Then, you can put it in your classroom library for students to check out and learn about their classmates. You can also leave it out at parent-teacher conferences or open house for family members to look through.
Grab the back to school craft here
Other Favorite First Day Of School Books:
- First Day Jitters
- School’s First Day Of School
- We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
- Our Class Is A Family
- The Crayons Go Back To School
- The Pigeon Has To Go To School
- How To Get Your Teacher Ready
- Decibella And Her 6 Inch Voice
Use any of these books with the resources listed in this blog post for a successful first week of school!
Download Your Free Kissing Hand Craft Activities and More
You can get a free Kissing Hand poem page, coloring page, and playdough mat in this digital file! There are two versions of the poem, one with a space for a handprint and one without. Enter your name and email and it will be delivered to your inbox shortly!
Resources Mentioned In This Blog Post:
Purchase Name Crowns here (TPT) or here (Missing Tooth Grins).
Purchase the First Week of First Grade Pack here (TPT) or here (Missing Tooth Grins).
Purchase the First Week of Second Grade Pack here (TPT) or here (Missing Tooth Grins).
Purchase the All About Me Ice Cream Writing Craft here (TPT) or here (Missing Tooth Grins).
Purchase the Ultimate Bundle of First Grade Back To School Activities here (TPT) or here (Missing Tooth Grins).
