1. Gather your materials. You will need a paper plate , multiple pieces of construction paper, scissors, glue, a permanent marker, and your choice of water colors or crayons.
2. Start my tracing your child’s hand or having them do it themselves. I traced mine first thing this morning and as he was eating breakfast I use it to trace all the other hand prints I needed. Trying to get him to stay still for one hand print was hard enough!
3. Trace out at least 4 but more is better!
4. Find all different ways people say thanks. If you have a toddler you will probably want to do this yourself, but I encourage parents with children able to understand to grab a map and explain that in that country children don’t say “Thank you ” in English, instead they speak ______ and say ______ .
5. Write the “Thank Yous” in permanent marker in the middle of the hands.
6. Have your child decorate the hands. We are using watercolor crayons but plain water color paint works wonderfully and crayons work in a pinch, as would light colored paint. You just don’t want to cover up the words.
7. Have your child decorate the paper plate.
8. While they work on the plate cut out the hand prints.
9. Cut out the middle of the plate.
10. Time to glue! I put a few globs on where the hands needed to go to guide my son, older kids obviously can do this themselves.
11. Let dry and add a ribbon!

” Whoever You Are” by Mem Fox gives me goosebumps and brought me to tears when I was a homesick Canadian teaching in St. Louis. The book is simple and talks about the differences of little children all over the world, but focuses on what they all have in common. There are beautiful illustrations that show children in all different cultures from around the globe with a sing song story to carry you along. It is a wonderful companion to the activity today.