How to make a Heart-Shaped American Flag

Teaching my first graders about symbols has always been a favorite unit of mine.  I'm not the most patriotic person on the planet, but studying the symbols and seeing their excitement makes me proud to be an American.  I've done several crafts over the years and have seen this one on different posts, so I decided to create my own version.  This craft was super easy because everything was already cut out for my little guys...thanks to the dye-cut machine {is it even a machine?}.

I used a large heart dye-cut and cut out hearts from construction paper.  I just cut the large pieces of construction paper, cut it in half vertically, and dye-cut away!  If you don't have access to a dye cut, you can always have your kiddos fold a piece of paper in half and have them cute half of a heart, open up the paper, and voila!

I did the same thing with the blue construction paper.  The blue is for the corner of the heart.  I used a dye-cut and just cot off the corner.  If you've got 20 kiddos, you only need 10 blue hearts because each heart has two corners.

Have your kiddos glue the blue onto the left-hand side.  Remind them that although this isn't a completely accurate version of the American flag, we'll do our best to make it somewhat accurate!

I gave my students a piece of white paper and they cut it into strips.

I modeled how to glue on the top piece.  Make sure they stick it under the blue piece and glue.  Then, have them cut off the extra strips that are hanging off the edge.

I also cut out stars using a dye-cut and the kiddos glued them on.

How stinkin' cute did these turn out?