Oh Christmas Tree!

 I saw this idea on Pinterest and fell in love with it!  I knew that this would be a great art project for my Kinder Kiddos!

I was so thrilled with the way they turned out!  

I drew out and copied triangles on white construction paper.  I gave each of them a half sheet of white construction paper triangles.

Then I had them Mod Podge tissue paper squares to the back of  the triangle paper.  (I actually just mixed Elmer's Glue and water for the Mod Podge) 

(I'm sorry I did not get a pic of this step.)

They painted a white piece of construction paper blue and cut out the triangles once it dried.

After the blue paint dried, I had them paint snow on the bottom half of their paper.  They glued their trees and stems on and then added snowflakes!

Pretty simply, but messy when you are doing that many artsy things with 16 five year olds!

They had fun creating their snowy tree scene!  I love art that lets children create and explore using a variety of mediums!

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Happy Holidays!

DIY Chia Pet

Want a cool activity that keeps on giving?  Check out these awesome cups of grass!  I made these fun plants this spring with my Kinder kiddos at school.  They loved having a turn to cut the "hair" on our creations!

All you needs is a: Styrofoam cup, potting soil, grass seeds (You can buy a small pkg. at Wal-Mart for a couple of dollars.)  and a permanent marker


Have your child design a face on the outside of the cup.  It is fun to make all sorts of funny and scary faces!  Next, fill your cup with potting soil.  You can fill your cup up to about and 1 inch to 1/2 inch from the top.  Next spread your grass seeds on top of the potting soil.  Mix them into the soil. (You will not want to bury the seeds deep into the soil.)  Water your grass when dry and in a week or so...you will have a funny looking character!  


The kids favorite part is getting to cut the hair!  Depending on the age of your child, you might want to assist them in "cutting" the grass.  I have seen some fun and crazy designs!  Let your child cut away and be as creative as they like!


The fun thing is that in a couple of days it will grow back and the plant is ready for a NEW hair design!

Who knew a cup of grass could be so entertaining!

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Fun Flower Art

This is a fun art project that I have been letting my Kinder kids do this week.  I posted about using old warming trays last summer.  It is great fun for the kids to watch the crayon melt on their papers!

They have turned out so cute!  I have also found that some of my Kinder kids are very artistic.  I had one little girl shade with a white crayon, it turned out so neat looking!

First of all the kids colored their flower picture using the warming tray.  After letting the crayon dry for a few minutes, I had them use watercolors to paint the background blue.  FYI— I would definitely use construction paper if possible.  The crayon can leave a waxy residue on the warming tray. 

Here are a few examples:

    

Happy Spring!

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Snowman--Hangman

I can’t believe that I have not posted in a while.  I really think I kind of needed a little break!  But now I am back and ready to move forward!

Here’s a little Kindergarten humor for you!

As most of you know..I spend tons of my time with 5 year olds.  We are currently learning about Arkansas.  I was reading a book and telling them that the Arkansas state beverage is milk.  I followed that up with…”You know milk comes from cows, right?”  Most of them did say yes.  I had one that said, “How do they do that?!?!”  Another responded..Umm, yea!  “It comes from their gutters!” 

Of course, I had to chuckle!  Never a dull moment in Kindergarten!

I am going to try to post a fun and educational activity each week that you could PLAY or PRACTICE with your child/children.

I found this one on Growing Kinders.

This is played like you would play hangman.  Only, using snowman pieces!   I have been playing this whole group with my Kinder kids.  They LOVE IT!  I have been using past and current sight words as my mystery words.  The words are short, but some of them are really getting good at using our word wall to help them figure out the mystery word.

Here is a pic. of the snowman that I made. 

Let me know if you play this game with your kids and if they enjoyed it!

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I am NOT a TURKEY!

I have not had a chance this school year to say how THANKFUL I am for my son’s first grade teacher!  She is a sweet, caring and overall just a WONDERFULLY PERFECT teacher for my son!  I have the privilege of taking my son with me to work everyday!  It is kind of fun to be able to smile at him and see him occasionally throughout the day!  There are days that he has even stopped in and said “Hello and given me a hug.”  I cherish every moment, because I know eventually he will be WAY TOO COOL for that!

All that to say…In first grade the teachers have Family Projects that they give out every once in a while.  For the month of November it is a Turkey.  The idea is to disguise the turkey so that the turkey will make it safely past Thanksgiving Day.  The turkeys can be dressed like ballerinas, football players, farmers…etc.

You can be as fun and creative as you want!  Glitter, paint, feathers, tissue paper…Oh MY!

Here is a picture of the turkey outline:

After creating the turkey they are to write about “How you are going to save yourself from being eaten for Thanksgiving Dinner.”

The page looked like this:

A picture of our turkey….

I would normally have drawn the cute little clothes, but we kind of waited until the last minute.  I googled cowboy clothes and found this:  http://www.makingfriends.com/images/f_cowboy_color.gif

I am a little bit partial…but I think it turned out GREAT! 

Fun times!

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Paper Pumpkins

In Kindergarten, we always take a trip to the pumpkin patch!  We love for the kids to see an actual field that the pumpkins are growing in. 

When we get back to school we write about our favorite part of the pumpkin patch trip.  I saw this idea on Somewhat Simple.  Instead, I typed out  the phrase “I liked the ________________.  The kids were to fill in the blank with their 3 most favorite Pumpkin Patch activities.  It is still early in Kindergarten and we have just started sounding out beginning sounds in words.  So for this activity, I wrote the words on the board that they told me they needed.

The kids did a GREAT job with these!  This activity was also great for practicing their cutting skills!

Here are two of the strips.  You will need 6 strips in all.  They had 3 “I liked” strips and 3 plain strips.

                                     

You will stack the strips all together and hole punch 1 hole in each end.  I attached brads on both ends.

After the brads are attached, pull each strip out and it will start looking like a pumpkin! 

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Magic Play Dough

We have officially finished our first “REAL” day of Kindergarten!  I am proud to say that I survived! It is a fun place to be, but oh so hard at the beginning!

Here is a fun little activity that we always do on the first day of school!  This one came from one of my fellow Kindergarten teachers!

All you need is red and blue Play Dough or two Play Dough colors that will mix to make another color!

Make some balls out of the blue Play Dough.

Flatten out a piece of red Play Dough.

  

Finish by rolling the red Play Dough around the blue Play Dough.

Place Play Dough in a baggie and attach this awesome poem to it!

This magic playdough ball

Is a special gift for you.

Play with it, roll it around…

That is all you need to do.

If the dough changes colors,

Then it will be very clear…

You are a (insert school name and mascot)

We will have an awesome year!

Okay, can you guess what will happen?!?!  The kids absolutely LOVE IT!  I love that the kids REALLY do think that it is MAGIC!!!  They always get so excited watching it change colors!  Oh…to be a kid again! 

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IT IS HOT, HOT, HOT!!

In Arkansas, we were sitting at well over 110 degrees in some parts! REALLY?!?!

I can't believe how incredibly hot the weather has been all summer. It is really rare for us to see temps. above 100 were we live. Honestly, I think I would take that 2 feet of snow we had back in Feb. anytime vs. this HOT weather!

SO...

I am being LAZY!

Yesterday, my son and I did put some crayons on the back patio to see how fast they would melt. ( I have seen this around blogland lately.)

The crazy thing was that we have not seen a cloud in the sky the past few days. Just guess what happened a few mintues after setting them outside? Umm..CLOUDS! YEP! It turned cloudy for about 30 minutes. I am not complaining! It was just really funny how things work sometimes!

So..even with the clouds our crayons melted pretty quickly! The kids now have a couple more fun crayons to use when coloring!

What is the temperature in your area?

Have FUN and STAY COOL!!

Totally Fun Tuesday #5

Melted Crayon Art

This idea came from two of my Kinder co-workers! Of course, it looked so COOL and FUN that I had to join in!

Most of you are probably familiar with the old warming trays. This is what they look like.

You can find these old warming trays at thrift shops. The 4 that I have I have found at The Salvation Army and Goodwill.

Basically, plug in the tray and it warms up. I will usually just print a color sheet off of the internet for the kids to color. (In my classroom, we will color something that goes with the topic we are learning about.) The kids LOVE it and LOVE watching the crayons melt!

WARNING: The tray does NOT get hot enough to burn, but the kids still need to be careful & supervised when using the warming trays.

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Totally Fun Tuesday/ What I am Working on….

At this point in my summer, I have to start thinking about going back to school.  (Sadly enough, my summer is going to be coming to an end way too soon.)

I changed rooms for the first time in my 10 years of teaching.  It is bittersweet!  I have REALLY BAD allergies and the room that I have been in the last 10 years seems to have only made them worse.  (A member of our K-team retired this year.    So I ended up deciding to move into her room to see if it would help my allergies.) 

Like I said..bittersweet…It really was time for a change!  Change is good! (see I am just trying to convince myself..that this is a good thing!)  Anyway, I have been at school trying to reorganize and set up a new classroom.  It is hard when you have been in the same place for so long.  The rooms are mostly the same, but not quite.  The layout is different enough that you have to rethink your room layout.

So…while I was there I thought I would share a cheap/fun kid idea with ya!  (Sorry, I was unusually wordy today???)

Noodle Fun

Swim noodles before:

Swim noodles after:

Okay, basically you just use a knife and cut these bad babies up!  Mine are about 3-3 1/2 inches wide.  In my classroom, the kids sort them by colors and by shapes. (some of the noodles were flower shaped)  I also cut some long pieces of rope for them to string them onto to make patterns.

I am sure there is more FUN to be had with these!! Just let your kids explore/play with them and see what they can think up to do with them!!! 

Keep a look-out for these to be on sale soon!  I think I got these really cheap at the end of the season!

I am linking here:

Totally-Fun Tuesday #2

Fruity Finger Paints

(This recipe came from The Ultimate Book Of Kid Concoctions 2)

by: John E. Thomas & Danita Thomas

2 cups flour

2 Tbs. (2 envelopes) unsweetened drink mix

1/2 cup salt

3 cups hot water

3 Tbs. cooking oil

Freezer paper

Directions:

1. Mix flour, drink mix, and salt together

2. Stir in water and cooking oil

3. Paint on the freezer paper.

My kids had a lot of fun making and painting with this paint! I do need to warn you that this makes tons! You could probably cut it down to a 1/4 and still have more than enough! I cut the recipe in half and each one of my kids still had a bowl full of paint!

They loved watching it turn colors!

Plus, it smells nice and fruity!

This is my 6 year olds finished product. In Kindergarten we kid spell. (meaning write what sounds you hear) It might not look like much; but after teaching Kindergarten for 10 years you just learn to see it! :)

Plus, I was standing there when he was sounding it out!

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Totally-Fun Tuesday #1

Crayon Making

My kids love melting and making new crayons!

We actually made heart crayons around Valentine's Day.

I re-used old baby food jars to melt the crayons in. You can find ice molds and fun plastic candy molds to fill to make new fun crayon shapes!

Target usually has fun, seasonal molds like this one in their $1.00 section!

I would suggest putting the baby food jars in a pot of hot/boiling water. Then, I pour the

melted crayon into the molds. (Caution: This part is NOT OKAY for your children to do.) I know that some silicon trays are made to be put into the oven. I have not experimented to see if these trays would do well in the oven. (I might experiment with one on a really low temp. and see how it goes.)

My kids love unwrapping crayons and sorting them into the appropriate colors. Sorting things by color, shape, or size is a good skill for younger children! For older children, you can talk to the about how a solid can turn into a liquid by heating it up! (Okay, that was just the teacher in me!)

Happy Crayon Making!!

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Recycled Magazine Flowers

April 22 was Earth day! This week in Kindergarten we have been learning about our Earth and how to take care of it! I usually make these awesome Recycled Magazine Flowers with my kiddos! The great thing is that I usually turn this little project into a Mother's Day gift for their mothers! We have yet to get these started this year, even still I wanted to share these awesome flowers with you!

You all know how I love the Family Fun Magazine! This is an activity that I found in the magazine several years ago! I tried to find the link, but did not have much luck. I am sure it is on there somewhere...who knows!

You will need a :

*Ruler

*Bright and colorful glossy magazine pages

*Hole Punch

*Green Chenille Stems

*Buttons (2 hole buttons work the best)

*Clear/green pony beads

*First, you will cut 4 to 6 same-size magazine strips. I have cut them both the width and the length of the magazine page. It will work both ways! You can cut them between 1/2 inch to 1 inch.

*Overlap the ends of the strip and hold all of it down in the middle. You will hole punch through the middle of all three pieces. (You can also punch 3 holes in the strip before folding it. One hole in the middle, one on each end of the strip)

*I found that if you place a tight fitting bead onto the green stem that your flower will stay put better.

* You will then place your strip onto the stem. You will continue to make and hole punch strips until you like the fullness of your flower. (I usually just make strips out of the whole page and use all of them.)

* When you are finished with your flower, place a button through the green stem. You will thread the stem through the other hole in the button. I usually feed the stem all the way back through the bead underneath. This keeps the flower tight.

6.) Finishing touches! In the past I have used glass soda bottles as the vase! They always turn out so cute! Tie a ribbon around the vase and your done!

Other ideas:

You could also make these cute bows to finish a cute, wrapped present! Oh the possibilities are endless!!! :)

Linking to these wonderful blogs!