How did you celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day? This is the first year that I’ve talked to my preschooler about this holiday. We read a bunch of picture books celebrating diversity and service (links
below) and talked about what it means to dream and treat all people kindly, no matter what they look like. Being a craft lover, we also sat down and made these Tissue Paper Luuminary Drawings. I love
the discussion that we had while making them and I love how they beautiful they turned out
too!
Martin Luther King Tissue Paper Luminary Drawings
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Before we
start, Iwant to note that I cannot take credit for this idea. I originally saw the idea for doodled tissue luminaries from Jean from The
Artful Parent. She has such great ideas for making these into really nice gifts, so definitely check her post out!
I knew that this would be such a beautiful project to do for Martin Luther King Jr day. I love the
image of each person shining their own light to bring hope and fight the
darkness around them.
Let's Design our own Tissue Paper Luminaries
To make
these tissue luminaries, I first collected
all the jars and plastic cups that I could.
(As you can see, I was only able to rummage up one jar. But my disposable plastic cup worked out perfectly too. If you’re doing this craft with a bunch of
kids, plastic cups are probably a better deal because they’re cheaper and easier and
less-breakable!)
Then I set
out to make template luminary covers
from scrap computer paper. The jar was
fairly easy to cover. I just needed a
long rectangular sheet of paper. The
plastic cup was definitely a bit tougher, but still doable! I placed my cup on a sheet of paper and
traced the bottom and top path that the cup made as I pushed it across the
page. I ended up with a pattern that closely fit our cup. (Test
it out to make sure! It’s pretty amazing!)
Then, I cut
out that paper luminary cover. (This can be your template in case you're making a ton of these.) Now I traced
the pattern onto single sheets of tissue paper.
Ok... here's the thing that I learned about working with tissue paper for this project- tissue paper is super duper thin. Little kids may have problems holding it down. Plus, Sharpie tends to soak through. So, I
- Left a bit of extra tissue paper around the outside of my pattern. This way I could tape down my tissue paper so my son wouldn't have a tough time drawing on it.
- Taped my tissue paper onto another sheet of paper so the Sharpie marker wouldn't leak through.
Why is my picture upside down?
Well, I took this photo at a later time to show you how we taped
everything down… and realized that I drew the image upside down. So just make sure you figure out which way is
up an and down before drawing!
How does this relate to Martin Luther King Jr?
Before
drawing we talked again about who Martin Luther King Jr was and what it means
to be kind to each other and love each other.
Then, I told him to draw what kindness and love looked like to him.
Here’s my
image of two hands hugging the earth
And here’s
his image. (It’s a picture of him
kissing me and me hugging him. He also
drew pictures of Christmas trees on the other side.)
Once you’re
done, cut out your thin sheet of tissue paper and use clear tape to tape it
onto your jar or plastic cup. Then, grab
your flameless LED candles and light them up!
Funny
story- Like usual, I wasn’t quite sure how much he actually understood of our
conversation. But then later that night when I was away, he told my husband to
bring the “Martin Luther King Jr Candle” into his room so he could fall asleep
to the light. I also heard him talking about "having a dream" the other day to his stuffed animals.
:) This made my mom heart happy.
And in case you were wondering, here are some of the books that we read!
10+ Books that Teach Children to Appreciate Diversity
- Say Hello
- Happy in our skin
- Shades of People
- Same, Same But Different
- Children Just Like Me
- I Am Rosa Parks
- The Family Book
- The Crayon Box That Talked
- Red: A Crayon's Story
- It's Ok To Be Different
- One
- Yoko
- My Mom is a Foreigner, But Not To Me
- I have a dream
I hope that
you have a wonderful time remembering, talking about, and celebrating this
holiday with your kiddos too. Happy
making, friends!