How to decorate a shirt with preschoolers?

Question

I'm a preschool teacher. I have a roomful of imaginative three-year-olds in my class. This summer, we are trying to decorate our school summer shirts. I was wondering if anyone could give me ideas on what I could do with them? Besides the very common fingerprint idea, i mean. I really want this project to both be do-able for three-year-olds and have an adorable finished product that the kids would be proud to wear!

Help, please!

Answer 1

you can get little foam or sponge shapes (you can cut them yourself) and dip them in paint, then press them on the t-shirt. Simple and cute :)

Answer 2

Here are some ideas to get you started.  If you could post your overall VBS theme, I'm sure you will get some more targeted response.

Check Oriental Trading for ideas on cute catchy phrases.  They have a cute cross that says GOD across and LOVE down, sharing the "O" http://image.orientaltrading.com/otcimg/... that might be cute.

Rainbows are always nice with "God Keeps His Promises" written underneath.  

Fishers of Men is a good sponge painting theme, just cut a sponge in the shape of the famous cracker fishy!  

A few years ago there were some items that were F.R.O.G. (Fully Rely On God) and similar themes.  

Here are some methods to consider:

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Sponge Painting - using pop-up sponges that you can cut with scissors simplifies this project, or you can buy sponges already cut into shapes

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Block Painting - stamps carved from everything from wood to potatoes work well for dipping in paint, then pressing to transfer the paint

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Crayon Iron Transfers - students color on iron-on transfers, then adhere by ironing (design will be backwards!)

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Magic Markers - signatures & quotes

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Writing Paint - use bottles with roller ball tips

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Stenciling - make your own stencils with heavy paper or plastic

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Answer 3

tie dye is fun - you can help them with the rubber bands, have an adult at each bucket of color and let them choose what colors they would like to do.

Hand prints would be cute - you could write on there - our class is the best, hands down!

Answer 4

Adorable by who's standard? The kids will be proud no matter what it looks like, because they got to do it themselves.

I would hand them the t-shirt and some sharpie markers. If you need something produced for parents to feel good about, get them screenprinted with the year in big hollow font so they can decorate *that* and it's a memorabilia.

Answer 5

You can  use hand prints to make fish, flowers or animals

W/ special fabric markers have each child draw a picture of themselves. You can pre -draw a circle and they do the rest.

Answer 6

TYE DIE~ GET WHITE SHIRTS, MAKE LITTLE DOTS WITH PERMANENT SHARPIE MARKERS, THEN MAKE DOTS, THEN ADD  DROPS OF RUBBING ALCOHOL ON IT, AND WATCH THE COLORS COME ALIVE!

Answer 7

My son's preschool teacher made fish print shirts with the children.  She bought real fish (I think they were talpia) from the meat dept of a local grocery store.  The children were given the choice of 3 paint colors to paint onto the fish (making sure to get the eye and fins) and then the fish was moved to a clean paper where the t-shirt was then laid down on top of it and smoothed over the fish to get the print.  The shirt was removed and hung to dry and then the fish was wiped off with a paper towel for the next child.  They are so cute and the kids loved them!

Answer 8

get all the students together and ask them their favorite colors  so they make tie-die shirts with the colors they choose or you could go to wal*mart or another craft store and look for other ideas that may be more suitable for children their age..but tie-dying is easy..it shouldn't be to hard for them.

Answer 9

Break them into groups of 4 (maybe with when they were born) and talk about the diffrent seasons, teach them that it snows in winter, gets flowers in spring, you can go to the beach in summer and in autumn the leaves turn yellow!!  then they can use fabric paints and glue felt pieces on the shirts in theme with their season! then no ones will be the same and they can really use their imagination just with colours! Obviously they are only 3 so can't draw well but if they simply use realtive colours to draw shapes that remind them of each season Im sure they'll grasp it great!

Answer 10

In the past we have used puffy paint and let them draw pics on their shirt.  We have also tye dyed, which they LOVED!  However, I don't reccommend using Rit Dye, it turns out like c**p...dull, boring and cheap.  I think there are markers you could find in a craft store that are specifically used for drawing on t-shirts.

I hope this helps!  Good luck!!!!

Answer 11

Another way to get cool shirts is to do iron-ons. You can buy them online cheaply (search on iron on transfer paper) or buy them less cheaply at Michaels or probably Staples. For these tiny kids, half a sheet will be enough. The process is this: Give each kid a half sheet of paper and have them draw whatever the lesson is (or whatever they choose, or whatever you decide to do). They can use any medium--crayons, markers, paint, fingerpaint, whatever. Let the pictures dry. Then scan the pictures individually into a computer (you can do two at at time, as the sheets are half sheets, if you know what I mean). Then print the images out in reverse onto the transfer paper (instructions are included--it's really easy). Then iron on the transfers onto the shirts. They're completely washable in regular wash, they don't run, and if the kid messes up his first drawing, there's no downside to doing another one.

I did this with 3yos preschoolers a few years ago, and my kids just made my husband a father's day shirt last week. Totally easy.

Good luck!

Answer 12

Tie Dye is always fun for the kids, they love it and if you do it right it comes out great, especially if you limit the kids to two colors so it doesn't get muddy looking.  You could also get little iron on numbers and make your class a "team" like in sports or even write their last names on the back.  On the front you could write room # or some cute name in the corner so its cohesive, as a class you could vote on  a name for your team.  You could tie dye, give them a last name and a number and then "sign" it using their hand print as a final touch.  Puff paint and paint markers are also good if you want the children to be able to write on their shirts.