St. Patrick's Day 2014

 

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY everyone!  Even if you aren't Irish, it is fun to pretend!  Today we made these cute little leprechaun hats.  Everyone loved cutting out their our rainbow strips.  

Our letter of the week is "I" so we also ate green ice cream!  And by the look on everyone's faces it was very YUMMY!

 
I hope you all wore green so you didn't get pinched!  And I hope you all stop back by, we will be talking about INSECTS this week!  FUN!!!

Just a Bunch of Tubes

Last week, during our Dr. Seuss week, I had this "great idea" to do something with empty paper towel and toilet tissue rolls.  You know those lovely tubes that "you just can't throw away".  I have everyone collecting these for me so I have quite a large supply.  Alas, my "great idea" just never came to be.  There were so many other things that I wanted to do that week so I crammed all the empty cardboard tubes into my closet for another day.  Well, this past week I was in the mood for something different.  Right after lunch on Wednesday I pulled out my stash and dumped it on our tables.  I had already punched holes into each end of all the tubes (I know, but it was a great way for me use up some nervous energy) and added some chenille sticks (better know to us old folks as "pipe cleaners") and stepped back.  OH MY GOODNESS, we had fun!!!

Can you see the look on the little boy's face in the stripped shirt?
He just realized how to connect the tubes so they would not fall apart!

 

Of course for the first few minutes I heard, "what do we do?" and "I can't!" but soon those negative comments turned into "LOOK Mrs. Karen!".  I knew they were having fun!  I loved watching my sweet "S" when she realized how to bend the pipe cleaners so that the tubes would stay together.  That was all it took!  Soon everyone was busy building their very own sculptures.  By the way, I knew this was really fun when I announced that it was time to get ready for our playground time and no one wanted to go!  I hope you try this and if you do, please let me know how it goes. 

"U"nited We Stand!

This past week was all about the good 'ole USA and we had so much fun studying about our country!  We started the week with an amazing activity.  This is an art project I have done before BUT it has evolved.  My class cuts extremely well for 3 and 4 year olds so I let them cut their very own stripes for our flags.

Cutting 7 red stripes takes a lot of patience but my class was up to the challenge!  Gluing down the stripes was fun too!

We added fingerprints for our stars and the results were beautiful!

I think Betsy Ross would be very proud!

 

We also started talking about The Constitution.  Now I bet I know what you are thinking . . . is she kidding???  NOPE!  And my little sponges loved it.  We really just focused on the Preamble, you know the part that says, "We the people . . ".  We couldn't actually recite the Preamble but at least we got the first few words AND their meaning.  After all these years my class can still amaze me! 

 

Wednesday was spent talking about our first president, George Washington.  I shared fun facts and read wonderful books about him.  We even made our very own "George" art project.

 

Thursday was spent discussing our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.  The fact that he lived in a log cabin had everyone talking!  So, of course we had to make our very own log cabin and Abraham Lincoln.

 

This time I cut the strips and the children glued them on.  I'm going to veer off topic for just a second (skip down to the next paragraph if you don't want to hear me rant.)  Do you see the "dried glue" on these (and ALL) of my class' art work???  Do you see the smeared handprint on the bottom photo???  Do you see the crooked eyes and logs???  This is proof that my students do their OWN WORK!  I cannot stand to see children's art work that looks . . . hmmm . . . well . . . like an adult did it!  Because if it does, then the child did not do it by him/herself.  Children are messy and they should be!  I will NOT do an art project for my students!!!  I will guide them, I will cheer them on, I will support them with every fiber of my being but, I WILL NOT do work for them.  OKAY, I done.  Back to our week . . .

We also learned about what it means to vote.  On Thursday, we pretty much voted on everything.  We voted on what color we like best.



You can see blue won by a landslide!

 

We voted on what books we read too!  I think everyone liked voting because I was asked if we could "keep doing it"!  YEA!  Success!

 

I found these cute little "Pledge Badges" over at Little Miss Kindergarten.  I enlarge ours and each child colored them.  (I KNOW . . . "Mrs. Karen's class actually used crayons!"  SHOCKER!)  Everyone was very proud to wear them in carpool!  Oh, yes, everyone in my class can and does recite the Pledge of Allegiance each and every day!

 



Our "Fabulous Fun Friday" was turned into our Unusual Day!  We have done this for several years and I do believe each year is more fun.  The children came in to find new books.  All the books about our country and the presidents were gone!  In their place were Christmas books, books about Thanksgiving and even books talking about summer!  AND our blocks were gone too!  I traded them in for . . . .

 

 

well, I don't really know what they are but they sure were fun to build with! Everything we did on Friday was unusual!  We even drew pictures under the tables!!!

After our unusual art work was finished we gathered in one of our "large" rooms and played a little under the table game.

Everyone seemed to enjoy crawling under the tables and over the chairs! 
This was our "U" week (you know . . . for United States of America)!  We had to eat something fun . . . red, white and blue cookies?  NOPE!  Uhhhh . . . how about Ugly cookies!  YEP, that sounds better!  We headed to the kitchen . . .

 

we put drops of EVERY color food coloring we had into the bottom of little cups.  Next everyone got a spoonful of vanilla icing.   Here comes the fun part . . . . . we stirred it up and spread it on our cookies!

 



 

We had some rather strange colors but no one minded because they tasted so good! 

 

Thank you for stopping by!  I hope you come back again.  Next week is our Dr. Seuss week and I'm sure it is going to be even more fun!

Valentine's 2014

Wait a minute!  What in the world am I doing posting to my blog on at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday??  Am I sick?  Is it a school holiday?  Am I playing hokey from school?  No, no and no!  Actually, we are having ANOTHER ice day!  Unlike last time, we received advanced notice and cancelled school for the day!  So, I thought I would take this opportunity to show everyone some of our wonderful Valentine fun!

I'm going to start with an activity that had everyone and I do mean everyone thinking I had lost my mind!  One of our letter this week is "H" and of course all the guys in my class loved telling me that "hammer" starts with "H".  Hmmmmm . . . . ok, let's hammer!?!?!?!  We made hammered hearts!

We started with a real honest to goodness hammer (thank you to my sweet hubby for allowing me to take it to school) and some chalk.  I sprayed the heart with a little water and laid the heart on a cutting board.  The children added pieces of chalk and then we covered it with wax paper. 

Then, I gave the child a hammer (and moved my fingers)!

WOW!  This was fun!  AND loud! 

After we hammered the heart, I sprayed our creations with hairspray (oh my goodness the "H" words) to keep the chalk from rubbing off.  Now this was a "H" week the children will not forget for a while!

We worked several days on our BIG Valentine surprise for our parents.  First we started off by painting a large piece of white construction paper with different colors.  Now, that doesn't sound very fun does it?  Well, it does when you paint it with "super fun" paint brushes . . . .

Everyone had a great time making our beautiful paper.  After it dried, we cut it into small pieces

and glued them to a giant heart.

OOH!  While our hearts were drying we wrote a little message to our parents.  Then, glue on our giant hearts.

 

But of course we did not stop here.  We took everyone picture holding their art work.

 

 

HOLD ON A MINUTE!  We're not done yet . . . . now we need a frame for this amazing photo.  My sweet friend and former co-worker, Martha, messaged me the other day on Facebook (yes, I'm on Facebook!) and asked me if I wanted some old silk roses.  WOW, she knows me ssssoooo well!  She arrived at school with the BIGGEST bag of silk roses I have ever seen!  I realized these would make our Valentine frames perfect.

 

 

I ripped the petals off faster than you could say "Valentines" and we were set!

 

 

The children added the lovely petals to our craft stick frames.

 

I picked up our lovely pictures and we will add them to our frames whenever we get back to school!



Wouldn't you love to receive this

(with your child's picture in it)

for Valentine's day?

 

Finally, no valentine's week is complete without our wonderful "Dancing Heart" girl and "Dancing Heart" boy.  I've been doing these for several years now and they are always a hit.

 

Can you see her hair bow?

The hair on this little fellow looks just

like the guy who made him!

 

Okay, I guess I better head off and do something productive in my house (not really, I'm probably just going to go and scrapbook some more wedding photos!).  I hope you try one or more of our ideas and if you do, please let me know how they turned out.  Thanks for stopping by!