The Kissing Hand Activities and Crafts for Preschool

The Kissing hand by Audrey Penn is a lovely story for children nervous about beginning a new school year. Here’s our favorite The Kissing Hand activities for preschool.

This is one of our favorite books to read together at the beginning of the school year. The main character in this story is a little raccoon that was a little bit nervous to go to school for the first time. Mrs. Raccoon told him she had a special secret that would help him feel his mother’s love throughout the day if he missed her. She opened up his little hand and kissed him right in the middle of the hand. He could feel her love spread throughout hiss body and all he had to do if he needed a reminder was to hold it to his cheek.

Kissing Hand Activities

A felt matching game from The Preschool Procrastinator is awesome and the poem that she wrote to go with it is perfect!

Kissing Hand

by Analisa Carrillo

Chester the Raccoon

really missed his mom.

So she gave him a kiss

in the middle of his palm.

The kiss helps him,

when they are apart.

Can you help him

find the matching heart?

Download and play a game of Memory inspired by The Kissing Hand! Free Kissing Hand Memory

Kissing Hands Counting Cards – Cut out the kissing hands. Put them in order from 1-5 and count the corresponding number of items (hearts, pom poms, erasers, beads, etc.). Put them in a line below each hand.

Adorable Poem and activity from Love to Teach or stamp your own child’s handprint and then put a red heart sticker in the middle of it.

Make Kissing Hand Cookies like they did at A Dab of Glue Will Do. She uses a hand cookie cutter, a small heart cookie cutter, and red food coloring.

After reading The Kissing Hand book, teachers can give these hershey’s kisses to their students to remind them of the book’s message. Tags from Happy Teacher Happy Kids

Feed the Raccoon Game from Stay at Home Educator is a great way to practice number identification and it is so much fun!

Kissing Hand Coloring Pages from Coloring Home are a perfect compliment to this awesome book.

Use these red hearts (affiliate link) as story tokens. Give one to each student after reading the story. Or put one in your child’s pocket before school that they can feel if they get nervous. They also sell these at dollar stores in February. Another idea is to draw a heart with marker on your child’s palm that they will see throughout the day.

Kissing Hand Crafts

Make a heart shape raccoon face with precut hearts of different sizes. Source: Kindergarten Days

Make a kissing hand necklace that says I love you in sign language! Picture and idea from Mrs. Nelson’s Class. Learning how to make this sign with their hands is great for finger dexterity and fine motor skills.

One of my favorite activities is this kissing hand craft that only needs a piece of paper from Krokotak. Each time they open it up to reveal the heart between their hands there are so many ooooohs and aaaaahs. It’s priceless! What a fun way to remember the story of The Kissing Hand!

Paper Plate Raccoon craft from Glued to My Crafts Blog using construction paper, tissue paper, and a pom pom.

Whether you are using these good ideas as school activities or at home getting ready to have a great first day of school, we know this is the perfect book to inspire fun activities and feel loved all at the same time.