🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🏆 Pride & Accomplishment — Completing a craft and displaying or giving it away gives children a concrete experience of accomplishment — building the relationship between effort, completion, and pride that motivates future creative risk-taking.
• ♻️ Environmental Thinking — Using natural or recycled materials in crafts begins to develop awareness that materials have a life beyond their original use — an early foundation for environmental stewardship and sustainable thinking.
• 👁️ Hand-Eye Coordination — Guiding scissors along a line, placing stickers exactly, and painting within a space all require the visual-motor integration that handwriting, sports, and detailed work depend on.
• 📋 Planning & Sequencing — Multi-step craft projects require children to think about what comes first, next, and last — building the procedural sequencing skills that underlie reading comprehension, mathematics, and everyday problem solving.

The Preschool Basic Greeting Card uses two full sheets of cardstock because preschoolers need more room to work. The Preschool Basic Greeting Card can be turned into any kind of greeting card just by choosing appropriate colors for the cardstock and using decorations for the right holiday or situation. 

Materials you Will Need

2 8 ½ by 11 pieces of cardstock
Paper punch
Yarn
Plastic needle or very thin straw
Scissors
Crayons or markers
Stickers (optional)
Rubber stamps and ink (optional)
Paper to write on
Pen
Ruler

How to Make It

Step 1:
This is a parent step, but your preschooler can learn by watching. Measure one inch from the left side of the cardstock and make very light line from top to bottom along this edge, Fold the paper back over this line, the unfold it to make a crease for opening the card. This will be the front of the card. There is no need to do this on the cardstock that will be the back.

Step 2:
Let your preschooler decorate the front of the card anyway s/he likes according to how it will be used.

Step 3:
Ask your preschooler what s/he wants to say in the card, “Merry Christmas”, “Please be my friend”, “Happy Thanksgiving”, etc, plus any personal greeting s/he would like to give. Word process this or write it for him/her. If s/he is old enough, you might write it lightly and let him trace it with a marker.

Step 4:
Glue the paper with his/her words onto the inside of the back of the card. Allow to dry completely.

Step 5:
Place the front sheet on top of the back and line them up. Punch several holes along the left side between the edge of the cards and the crease you made earlier. If it’s too thick for you to punch both sheets at the same time, punch the holes on the top sheet of cardstock first, then use it as a template to mark where the holes go on the second sheet. You will need a hole at each end plus on ever inch or so. Too few holes will cause the card to buckle when it’s put together.

Step 6:
Thread the yarn into the needle or straw and weave it in and out of the holes. Tie off both ends making it tight enough to hold the card together without making it buckle.

Helpful Tips for Parents

Tip 1:
While you can make envelopes from newsprint or other large sheets of paper, the folding involved can be tricky for preschoolers. Instead, if you want the card to have an envelope, use one of those 11 by 13 mailing envelopes. While they most commonly come in yellow, you can sometimes purchase them in other colors in craft or stationary stores.  Office stores will often sell several types of mailers for large pieces of mail if you wish to send the card through the U.S. Postal Service.

Tip 2:
If the card is to be hand-delivered, your preschooler can decorate the envelope to match the card.

Tip 3:
If the card is for a relative or someone else close to your family, you might want to include a photograph of the child on the right side of the inside of the card. You can by “corners” where you buy scrapbooking supplies. If you attach these inside the card, they will hold the photo in place without damaging it.

Tip 4:
You can buy many precut shapes such as Christmas trees, bows, turkeys, and even basic shapes like circles or triangles in many places that sell scrapbooking supplies. This makes the card making simpler for preschoolers who aren’t ready for scissors.

Tip 5:
Let your preschooler “sign” his/her name, even if s/he can only make a scribble.

Tip 6:
This format is also good for your preschooler to use when sending thank you notes for gifts.