Rip and glue collage letters

It's been such a busy month! Kindergarten has been filled with days of cutting, glueing, creating, exploring, playing, and lots of learning. To start off the year we worked with learning about our names. This project is a simple one but be forewarned it does involve some hands on adult cutting after the kid part is complete.

1. Create the large capital letter for each name by using WordArt (select the basic straight one and increase the outline to about 3.0).

2. Provide strips of construction paper to each table. We talked about how you only need one color at a time so use a little and then pass it

on. Instruct the children to rip the paper into little odd shapes- no scissors! After a few minutes it will become clear who has stronger fine motor skills. (On the second day I pre-ripped the paper and gave them confetti.)

3. Have children glue the paper all over the letters. Encourage the children to cover the outline and all of the white space inside the letter.

4. Print out "_______ is for ______________." and have each child complete the sentence.

5. Cross your fingers for a parent volunteer or a large block of prep time.

6. Cut out the letters on the lines- this will involve flipping the page over to be able to see the lines. You will have to do some re-glueing as some of the pieces will be glued on the outside of where you are cutting.

7. Glue both the sentence and the letter to black paper.

I am debating laminating the finished product but am torn because the layers being stacked add a great visual element. My reason to laminate is that I will be hanging these over the cubbies and am concerned about little hands causing little pieces of paper to come detached.