We did a fun and simple 4th of July Craft today that I thought I would share. Since the 4th is on Monday I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to talk about the American Flag. I don't know why I didn't think about this a couple weeks ago for Flag Day, but oh well. We discussed what all the symbols and colors on the flag mean (listed at bottom of post) and then went about crafting our own paper flag. I thought it would be cool if instead of cutting the strips in a straight line we rip the strips out of the paper. It made a cool effect and the kids had fun trying it out. We ended up using most of the strips I ripped, but I still gave the kids the opportunity to rip a couple.


Materials you will need:
-white sheet of card stock paper
-5 red strips of paper (ripped from a red sheet of construction paper)
-1 blue rectangle (ripped out of a blue sheet of construction paper)
-glue
-star stickers


Directions:
1. Put glue on the red strips of paper and stick them down on your white paper spacing them out to make the red/white flag pattern.

On occasion, Mr. Tyrannosaurus Rex sits in on our crafting time. He is a good buddy of ours.  :)

2. My strips were longer than the white paper so after they were glued on we just trimmed the edges to line up with the paper.


3. Glue your blue rectangle onto the corner of your paper.


4. Put your star stickers on your blue rectangle.


See, 4 simple steps and you've created a cute American Flag.



Some Facts about the American Flag that we talked about (source):

• The stripes represent the 13 original colonies.
• The 50 stars represent the number of states.
• The Red symbolizes Hardiness and Valor.
• The White symbolizes Purity and Innocence.
• The Blue represents Vigilance, Perseverance and Justice.

Hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July!! Happy Crafting!!

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