We made these Palm Sunday crafts with handprint palms,  and footprint donkeys. So much fun!

Supplies Needed:

• Paint (preferably washable tempera paint for working with kids)
• Paper (we cut white poster board into quarters)

I love handprint and footprint crafts! I like to put the paint out on a paper plate to let the kids stamp their hands in.

You can also just paint right onto their hands with a paintbrush if you find that’s easier.  First, stamp a gray footprint in the middle of your paper.

A wider footprint makes for a cuter donkey head, so you might want to push the paper onto your foot to stamp some of your arch on there.

Wash off your feet. My mom was washing the kid’s feet, and I told her it was a little bonus “Holy Thursday activity”.

I had the kids fingerpaint the donkey’s features on. I would give older kids brushes and let them do more detailed work.

Paint the donkey’s eyes, nose, hair,  and ears. We used red paint to add the word “Hosanna” because red is the liturgical color for  Palm Sunday. Then, stamp green handprints all along the bottom for the “Palms”.

Tips for Painting a Cute Donkey:

• First of all, I found that the footprint donkeys are cuter as profiles than straight on. This means you can see just one eye.
• Donkey’s noses are white at the end, not black.
• Donkeys have big ears, more like bunnies than horses.

To paint a cute profile donkey,  follow these steps:

1. When making your gray footprint, be sure to push the paper onto your foot arch so his face will be wide enough.
2. Get some white paint, and paint a big circle of his nose white.
3. Paint a football shape white for his eye. Only paint 1 eye.
4. With your black paint, add one dot for a nostril, and one line for the mouth from the bottom of his nose.
5. Also with the black, outline your white football shape and paint a black dot for his eye. More advanced painters can add one white dot in the middle of the black part of his eye for a little glean.
6. With gray paint, add long bunny-type ears.
7. With black paint add his hair down his head and back around the toes, and a tuft between his ears.
8. When you’re finished with your donkey, add handprint palms across the bottom and a red Hosanna across the top. You’re finished!

If you’re painting the donkey straight on rather than a profile, he might look more like this:

Even Julian (age 3) and Violet (age 1) had fun with this one.

 We’ve been watching The Easter Story from Hanna Barbara, which tells the story of Jesus from Palm Sunday through the Resurrection, so my kids were really  excited about getting to paint the donkey and palms! I totally recommend this movie- so cute and hits all the high points of Holy Week. I was even pleased with the portrayal of the Last Supper and the wording was more similar to the new mass translation than the old one.  (This movie is currently on sale for less than $4 including Prime shipping on Amazon!!! Thank you to Catholic Deals for finding this great deal!)