Shrinky Dink Crafts 8: Birthdays

Teachers should talk with students and ask them why birthdays are important. Teachers will want students to realize that each individual that is born, is special and worth celebrating. Birthdays are also used for many legal reasons. For example, a student may apply for a permit to drive on their sixteenth birthday, they are considered a legal adult on their eighteenth birthday and can legally drink alcohol at age twenty-one.

Teachers should then ask students to name symbols that are used to celebrate a birthday. The answers students give should be written on the chalk board. Teachers may hear words like cake, candles, cupcakes, presents, balloons, confetti, or party hats.

You will need the following items to complete this project:

1. Shrinky dink sheets
2. Cookie sheets
3. Oven
4. Pencil Crayons
5. Scissors

Follow the directions below to make your shrinky dink birthday symbols:

1. Buy shrinky dink sheets. They are sold in packages online and in craft stores. You will need one sheet for each student. Each sheet can contain about five birthday symbols. If you wish to buy your sheets online you can do so at the original shrinky dink store. Just click on the link and choose "shop online".
2. Give each student one shrinky dink sheet and have them place the sheets on their desk with the rough side up.
3. Instruct each student to take a pencil crayon and create an outline of one of the symbols listed on the board. Make suer the outline is bigger than they actually want it, because it is going to shrink when baked.
4. Have the students color their birthday symbol.
5. Have the students cut out their birthday symbol. They need to make sure they leave a clear edge all the way around their symbol when cutting it out.
6. Place each birthday shirnky dink on the cookie sheets.
7. Go to the school's kitchen and turn the oven on 325 degrees.
8. Insert the shrinky dinks for sixty seconds and remove.
9. Cool the shrinky dinks off.
10. Make magnets out of the birthday symbols by placing a magnet strip on the back. You can get the magnets at a craft store. Peel the paper off of the back of the magnet and press onto the shrinky dink birthday symbol.