Week 33- Easter

The week before Easter was a very fun week, and we had lots of adorable Easter activities that ended with an ‘Easter Party’ on Thursday.  It was also a short week, since we all had off Friday for Good Friday.

On Monday, we focused on ducks.  We read the stories “Five Little Ducks” and “Little Quack”, then for a movement activity we did duck races where the kids had to race from one line on the floor to the other holding their ankles to make them waddle like ducks!

The students did a paper plate duck from here, and they also played Easter Bingo!

At the end of the day we read “Little Quack’s Hide and Seek”.

 On Tuesday, we focused on eggs.  We read the story, “The Big Bunny and the Easter Eggs”, then we played two games that involved big, colorful eggs.

I traced, cut out, and decorated 20 eggs in pairs, so there were 10 different designs in all.  These were big, cardstock eggs, about 10 inches tall.

For our first game, called Egg Match, the kids all closed their eyes and I gave them one of my eggs. They then had to find the person in the classroom that had the same egg as them.

In our second game, called Egg Hatch, we put the eggs on chairs in a circle and played musical chairs with them, pretending like we were chickens sitting on our eggs.  When the music stopped and someone was left without an egg and a chair, we said their egg hatched (instead of they lost).

 

Snack, of course, was hard-boiled eggs.

For art, the kids got to decorate their very own big eggs, and I hung them all on a Big Easter Basket bulletin board.

At recess, we did an Egg Relay, where the kids had to walk to the fence and back, balancing a hard-boiled egg on a spoon.

On Wednesday, we focused on bunnies.  We read “Bunches and Bunches of Bunnies”, then we did my favorite ‘Little Bunny Foo Foo’ fingerplay.  After learning the fingerplay, we did a gross motor of ‘Little Bunny Foo Foo’, where the kids hopped around the classroom.  For our craft, we made Easter Baskets from milk cartons, which was from the book “Early Childhood Themes”.  I absolutely LOVE the way they turned out, and we filled them up with goodies for Easter!

 

I found a great Easter Egg Letter-Writing Assessment from MadeByTeachers that the kids did as well to see how many letters they could write or copy!

 

On Thursday, we had an Easter Celebration.  We started by reading “Happy Easter Little Critter”, and of course doing an Easter Egg Hunt around the classroom!  The kids put their Easter eggs in their new baskets!

We also had them do little activities for basket-fillers. 

First, the kids made Goldfish Carrots (from ADailyDoseofDavis) by filling pastry bags with goldfish, securing it with a rubber band, adding green ribbon and a construction-paper leaf.

They also made Rabbit Tails (from indulgy) by counting out three donut holes and putting them in a bag, then attaching a bunny print-out and writing the words Rabbit tails'.

Finally, they added in these Chick Fruit Cups from Kelly's Healthy Kitchen that I had made for them earlier that day.


The week was very exciting, and full of new and fun activities to celebrate Easter and Spring!

Week 32 - Food

The second week in April was food-themes, and we worked on understanding that everyone needs food, as well as the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods.

 

We started on Monday by reading "Mouse Mess".  We also did the finger play 'Hickory Dickory Dock' to go with the mouse story, and we made a Healthy and Unhealthy food anchor chart, where the kids helped me think of healthy foods (foods that made you strong) and unhealthy foods (ones that make your belly hurt). 

 

For our art center, the kids colored their favorite healthy food, the made it out of play-doh. We out all the pictures together in a class healthy foods book.

 

We also did a cracker sorting activity, similar to the Dino egg sorting activity, where I cut out paper crackers from cardstock and drew differ numbered dots on them, and the kids had to sort them by number.

 

On Tuesday, we introduced Mr. C, who wears a Colossal Cap because he’s shy and likes to hide under it.  We read the books, “Gregory the Terrible Eater” and “Who Stole the Cookie”, then did a ‘Who Stole the Cookie game’.

For our game, I made a big cookie out of cardstock and put the kids in a circle. They all closed their eyes, and I gave the cookie to one student to hide behind their back or sit on.  Then I told them all to open their eyes, and I would ask someone, “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” and they would reply with who they think did it; “Bobby stole the cookie from the cookie jar!”  I would then go over to Bobby and he would say “Who me?”. We would all reply “Yes, you!” and if Bobby didn’t have the cookie, he would say “Couldn’t be!” and I would say “Then who?”.  It would then go on until they figured out who had the cookie.  It was a great activity to practice hiding objects, and using our friends’ names!

 

For art, we made our very own Colossal Caps to match Mr. C’s! I did this by having the kids decorate a big piece of construction paper with things that started with C, then I taped the two ends together to make a cylinder, then cut & added brims.

 

On Wednesday, we read “What Do We Need?” from the letter people curriculum, which reminded the kids of all the different needs that we have, including shelter, food, water, and sleep.  We also read “On Top of Spaghetti”, then sang the song and did a movement activity to go with it.  If you don’t know the song, it’s one of my favorites!  You can find it here. 

 

For a game, we played ‘Hot Meatball’, which was just like ‘Hot Potato’, but with a meatball (red ball)!

 

We also watched “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”.

 

On Thursday, we focused on breakfast foods.  We read “Sheldon’s Lunch” and “An Elephant Comes to Breakfast”.  The kids made and ate pancakes, then did a Healthy/Unhealthy food sort by putting magazine pictures in the correct column based on if they ‘made you strong’ or ‘made your tummy hurt’. 

 

At the end of the day, we read “We’re Making Breakfast for Mother”.

 

Finally, on Friday, we read the book “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie”, as well as “Stone Soup”.  With “Stone Soup”, I turned it into a group story activity, where each student had a paper version of the ingredients in the soup, and as I was reading the story they had to come put their ingredient in the ‘pot’ and stir, stir, stir.  It was a great activity for recognizing and naming foods, plus made sure they listened to the whole story!

 

The kids also played food bingo, and at the end of the day we read “The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Junk Food”

Week 31? Dinosaurs!!!

I'm quite a few weeks behind on posting, but now we're really getting to the end of the school year and the massive workload is thinning out, so I can try to play catch-up.

Sorry in advance for the lack of pictures over the next few weeks (including dino-week, sorry!), I feel like I've barely been in the classroom with all the end-of-year assessments, and when I am in the classroom the last thing I have time for is documenting!

 

Back at the beginning of April, we had Dinosaur week, a week that I had been looking forward to all year.  We also worked on the letter person Q that week.

On Monday, we focused on the letter Q so that we could have lots of dino-fun the rest of the week.  We met Mr. Q, and we read two books about quilts: "The Quilt" and "The Quilt Story".  We even made a class quilt!  I wasn't sure how I was going to do this (I was debating having them color on squares of fabric with fabric markers and sewing them all together, but ended up going with an easier option).  The kids all decorated a square of white paper however they wanted (we tried to get them to decorate them with things that started with Q), and then later I traced all the squares onto an old sheet to make a mini-quilt... the perfect size for Mr. Q to use! The best part was that is was the simplest option... no fussing with 3 year-olds with fabric markers, and no sewing!!

We also had the students try to ask QUESTIONS, which was actually a much harder thing than I had expected.  We played a guessing game, where I put something inside a tin and the kids played '20 questions' to try and guess what was in there.  Most of the responses I got were nowhere near a question or anything to do with the object, so we'll have to work on it some more.

On Tuesday, we did an introduction to dinosaurs. The learning goal was that the students would understand that dinosaurs lived long ago, not now.  I read the book, "My Dinosaur", and then we got started on our amazing dinosaur songs.  Now, these songs were passed down from my mom and her classroom (back when dinosaurs were in the curriculum), and they are on a cassette tape that I had to keep rewinding and playing just to get to the right song.  After much searching, I found that these songs are actually from 1978 (!) on the album 'Our Dinosaur Friends' by Pam Johnson, Wayne Parker, and Eric Miller.  I found the playlist of all our songs on youtube.

On Tuesday, we learned the Stegasaurus Song and the Pterodactyl Song, and danced along to them.  I played them through each three times (I really wanted them to learn them), the first just with them listening, the second with me showing them the dance moves, and the third with them singing and dancing along. 

For our craft, the kids painted a Dinosaur Scene by water-painting a background with different colored stripes, and adding die-cuts of different dinosaurs.

We also did a dinosaur egg sort, where I cut out lots of different eggs on cardstock, added different colored and numbered dots to one side, and added a shape to the other.  The kids could then sort them by color, number, or shape!

At the end of the day, we read "How Do Dinosaurs Play with their Friends?"

On Wednesday, we learned the Brontosaurus Song.  We also read "Can You See What I See? Dinosaurs" and "Dinorella" (which was a cute dinosaur version of Cinderella that was about a brontosaurus).  We watched the movie, 'We're Back!' (one of my favorites from childhood), and started preparing for Thursday's craft by painting snack boxes green.

At the end of the day, we read "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?" and had the kids try to do Glue-Resistant Dinosaur Painting from ThatArtistWoman, but our versions didn't turn out quite as well as they did in her version!

On Thursday, we started off the day by reading "Mrs. Toggle and the Dinosaur", then we learned the Triceratops song and the Tyrannosaurus Rex Song. 

For our craft, we finished our Trex puppets from FamilyThemeDays! We made these by cutting three sides of a snack box down the middle and folding them to make a puppet.  Then we painted them green (during our dinosaur movie on Wednesday), and when they were dry we added a tongue on the inside, and construction paper eyes and teeth. Finally, the kids drew on nostrils for a nose, and gave their dinosaur a name.

I also did this Dinosaur-Themed Letter Assessment from MakingLearningFun, and let the kids paint-dot each letter that they knew.  This was a great way to take data at the mid-end of the year, and was wonderful to send home to the parents to keep them on track!

At the end of the day on Thursday, we read "How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?", which was the last book I owned in this adorable series.

Finally, on Friday, we focused on bones, since it was important for the kids to understand that bones are the only thing we have left of dinosaurs since they lived a long long time ago. 

In the morning, we read "Dinosaur Garden" and "Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones." The Skippyjon books might just be my favorite, besides Pete the Cat.  I have so much fun reading them, but it definitely takes some practice!

We did a dinosaur bone hunt, where the I hid a bunch of cardstock bones around the classroom and the kids had to find them, bring them to me, and tell me where they found them.  We learned about how looking for dinosaur bones is a real job, called an Archiologist.  Finally, we learned the very last dinosaur song, called 'Our Dinosaur Friends'.

For our art project, the kids made Dinosaur Skeletons from Q-tips from StuckOnGlue.  I pre-cut out dino-skulls from white construction paper, then I drew white lines in to make dinosaur skeletons on black construction paper for the kids to glue on top of and stick the q-tips.  The kids then had a choice to draw their very own dinosaur skeleton, or use the ones I had already drawn.  One parent of a non-talkative child told me later that the child brought home this 'q-tip' creation, and the parents didn't know what it was.  When the asked the child and he responded 'T-rex!', they were so proud they hung the 'creation' on the fridge.  Hearing this story made me proud, too!!  "It's the process, not the product". 

One other activity that the students did on Friday was make fossils with various objects and play-doh.  We used shells, mini plastic figurines, beads, and anything else with different textures, and showed the kids how to make 'fossils' by imprinting the objects in the dough. 

Dinosaur week was lots of fun, and just writing about it makes me want to play the songs for the kids again and see what they remember!

Graduation gifts, Wedding Crafts, Household Items and more recipes

Lately, I have been working on crafts to cover graduation, thank yous, my wedding, and my home.

First of all, I made a few things to celebrate my dad's graduation from UF with his Master's.  

I painted this Colorful Gator Canvas inspired by this talented artist on Etsy.  

Now, I know that my 'creativity' talent is really strongest in the area of copying - I can see something and figure out how to make it or how to copy it, but I'm not too good at creating my own things - I feel like that's the real creative part! I tell everyone that I'm not 'creative,' I'm 're-creative'.  Anyways, I took this on as a challenge and decided to develop my own painting similar to the Gator one, but with the Knightro, the UCF Knight instead.  I had to study many different pictures online of Knightro to get his body and curves just right, and I finally ended up creating this Colorful Knight Canvas, which I am very proud of!! 

To go with my dad's painting, I also made him a Graduation Tumbler inspired by Debra Odel's Version on Etsy. It says 'The Tassel was Worth the Hassel.' To make this, I used my cricut and vinyl, as well as a tumbler I bought on Amazon for $6 (though I found at the grocery store for $2 the next day). The gator image is from the Animal Kingdom cartridge in Cricut Craft Room. I hand-drew and cut out the graduation cap (spending another $20 on a cartridge just to get one image? No thank you!).  As an after-thought, I added 'Master Spears' above the gator to personalize it a little more.  My dad really liked that, even though it was silly.

 

Finally, to finish off my dad's gift, I put together a picture frame with pictures of our whole family's Master's graduations with an open spot for his picture.  My dad was the very last one in our family to earn his Master's Degree, so I thought it was a nice little reminder that in general we are all smarter and more efficient than him (just kidding!)  It was a five-opening frame, so in one of the openings I put a vinyl quote on there saying 'Learn as if you were to live forever'.  Here is a picture of all 3 graduation gifts together:

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Another gift I made was Etched Wine Glasses for my friend's parents for hosting us in their house in Canada for spring break.  This is the first time I had toyed around with the initial-last name combination in Cricut, and I needed help from my wonderful roommate, but they turned out pretty good! One has more 'character' than the other, but they said that's how they can tell them apart! 

When I presented them with the wine glasses, their first instinct was amazement at how massive the glass was.  I found this amusing because I'm so used to drinking out of this size glass, and I find all other wine glasses just too tiny to do anything with.  Same goes for coffee mugs. We'll chalk it up to cultural differences ;)

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One final gift that I made recently was this set of Engagement Glasses for my wonderful roommate, who was engaged over spring break.  I made a wine glass for her that said 'I do' with a big 'ol diamond on the O, and I made one for him that said 'I do what she says.'  These were inspired by this listing on etsy.

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Alright, let's talk about wedding crafts! We are still 7 months away from the big day, and if it weren't for the time I have and the possession of the Cricut, I would not be doing nearly all these things.  But, as luck would have it, I see these cute things on pinterest and I think, 'I could do that!', so I do.

A great example of this is these Family Reserved Chair Signs for the wedding ceremony, inspired by... what else?... this listing on etsy. To make these, I cut out the signs in cardstock/scrapbook paper, cut the letters in vinyl, and added a ribbon at the top.  Easy and sweet.

(Sorry about the upside-down picture, the website keeps flipping it and I just give up).

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I also made these Wedding Party Etched Shot Glasses.  These were a pain to make, not just because I had to deal with cutting out tiny letters on the cricut (ugh), but I also had to transfer all the tiny inserts to the shot glass (ugh ugh), and the etching cream is also a pain (ugh ugh ugh).  But, I got through.  Once again, a lot of them have 'character', especially from where the etching cream dripped down while they were sitting, but I'm hoping the recipient will drink enough out of them to not mind a few flaws.

On the front of each shot glass I put fiance and my new couple monogram (AGL), and on the back I put the bridesmaid/groomsman's name and the date of the wedding.  I thought these would be a nice addition to the bridesmaid gifts, and will be a thoughtful gift from the bride to the groomsmen.

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Finally, we got our bridesmaid dresses in, so I went and picked them up and got the opportunity to make these Personalized Wedding Hangers for all the girls before I delivered their dress.  Each wooden hanger has the girl's monogram (hey, I want to get my money's worth of that Extreme Fonts cartridge), as well as their title 'Bridesmaid', 'Maid of Honor', 'Flower Girl', and the date of the wedding. I also added a silver ribbon to the top... they look great together!!

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I've also been working on some household projects.  For spring break, my friend and I went on a road trip that took us from Boston to Maine, through New Hampshire and Vermont, and up to Montreal.  This means that I had 3 new states to add to my list of states visited, and it was finally time to do this awesome Picture Travel Map that I saw on pinterest.  

This was actually a more complicated process than I thought it would be.  First, I had to find a picture from each state I had visited, which meant digging through childhood pictures as well.  Then, I had to get the pictures to fit the state.  For example, my Rhode Island picture had to be tiny, the North Carolina picture had to be horizontal and flipped for us to be on the right, and the Maine picture was cut so my face is awkwardly there.  Some of the pictures, like California and Texas and Florida, had to have custom poster-sized pictures ordered (for like $8 each... ouch!).

Next, I outlined the states in sharpie so they would be easier to trace, then I traced them onto regular lined notebook paper.  I then took the notebook paper states and cut them out, and traced them on the back of each picture, then cut them out again and double-sided taped them to the map.

See that big gap between New York and North Carolina? I have plans to take care of that gap this summer :)

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Next, fiance and I had to make a sad, sad purchase recently... a crate for our beloved dog.  When we adopted Lily two years ago, she was 8 years old and her previous owner stated that she had never been able to keep her in a crate; she hated it and she figured out how to get out of every one.  So, our spoiled dog had full-range of the house while we were gone for the day, except for the bedrooms which had closed doors.  Well, over the past year or so, we've been in a constant battle with Lily and her developed habit of peeing behind the couch when we would leave the house.  We tried to get to the bottom of the problem, and thought she might just be getting too old to hold her bladder all day, but after multiple weekends of her laying in bed with us for up to 14 hours at a time without relieving herself, we knew that couldn't be it.  Plus, she only did it when we left her alone, so we knew it must be a stress/separation issue. I joked that she's trying to train us not to leave by giving us a negative consequence every time.

 I think I've tried every pinterest solution out there to get the smell out so she wouldn't do it anymore, but she continued to do it. 

We got the carpets professionally cleaned - didn't work.

We bought her a thunder shirt - didn't work.

We bought a Bissel Steam Machine - it cleans it, but she still pees.

We put up a board to block her from going behind the couch - she knocked down the board and peed on it.

We blocked her into the kitchen with a complicated maze of chairs and bar stools - she jumped over them.

We locked her in the bathroom downstairs - she jumped up on the handle and opened the door.

We locked her in the bathroom upstairs, where the door opens in - she jumped on the handle and nuzzled the door open.

We locked her in the bathroom upstairs and put a door under the handle - she moved it.

Finally, we bought a crate.  The guilt was immense, thinking of this poor 70-year old woman being locked in a jail all day when she had never been locked up before.  Well, the crate is working, she can't get out, she doesn't pee in it, and besides the guilt weighing us down every day , I think our life has improved.

Well, since we now have this big ugly crate in our already-cramped living space, I figured I would make it a little prettier by sewing this Dog Crate Cover. I picked out a pretty fabric and just kind of measured, cut, and sewed until I ended up with this.  It fits perfectly over the crate, creating a little cave for her.  I created 'curtain doors' over both doors of her crate, one in the front and one on the side.  Tied with ribbon, they look absolutely adorable.  I'm very happy with how it turned out!  

... and if you're wondering how Lily liked it?... she drug it through the bars of her cage the very first day and crumpled it up under her bed, then she chewed the carrying handle off the crate. Well, that's that.

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I also organized our medicine by using this 3-drawer organizer and the cricut. Pretty self-explanitory.

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Finally, I received an Etsy request for a UCF rag wreath, so I made one of these beauties again!

 

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The very last thing I have to report on is my recent recipes.

Recipe #172 - Apple Orchard Panini from Iowagirleats: When I saw the recipe for this panini, I got super excited because there's a similar panini at one of our favorite restaurants that I absolutely adore.  This panini is glorious - it's full of apple and brie cheese and goodness!

Recipe #173 - Peanut Butter Butterfinger Cookies from PlainChicken: These cookies were absolutely amazing, and so easy to  make! I had all the ingredients except the butterfinger candy bars, and they were done in, like, 1/2 hour.  We were devouring these cookies right before our trip up to Gainesville, so I packed the rest up in a plastic baggie to share in the hotel.  Well, I had one last cookie and put them on the counter to go to my dad's graduation.  All through the 4-hour ceremony from hell, I just kept thinking about getting back to the hotel and eating a cookie.

Well, we return to the hotel to find that the cageless Lily had jumped up on the counter and devoured the cookies herself - I guess we had set a bad example for her.

That's all I have for now, but school's out in 3 weeks and I will have an empty summer ahead of me that I have a feeling will involve endless crafts.  Get ready!