Valentine Bag Decorating Craft Ideas

With Valentines Day coming up, these were 2 super cute ideas that I saw by googling for decorating Valentine Bags.  It's amazing the kinds of animals you can make out of hearts.  I love the play on words with:

• Some "Buggy" Loves You!
• Some "Bunny" Loves You!

On the bunny one, we did a variety of different color combinations for the boys and the girls.  What a cute and fun way for the kids to decorate their V-Day bags before Valentine's Day.

You can get a 2 pack of the white paper handle bags at the dollar store or dollar tree.

Kindness Project

The Kindness project went over very well and turned out beautifully.  After reading "Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler" to the class, each of them received 4 folded cutouts to attach to their kindness boquets.  I wrote School, Home, and Community on the whiteboard to show the different categories of kindness.  On each folded cutout, the class wrote a category of kindness and inside the folded cutout, they thought of an act of kindness that went with that category.  With the 4th cutout, they could choose any of the 3 categories and come up with another act of kindness.  Once they finished coming up with their acts of kindness, they attached them to their boquets using a gluestick.  They came up with some awesome acts of kindess and really enjoyed themselves.  Some of the students referred to the kindness boquets as kindness broccolis :).

In the end, we assembled all the boquets into the shape of a heart.  They did a super job and were proud to take their boquets home.

Dazzling Snowflakes using Tri-Beads - Sparkling Ice Crystals

For the Classroom holiday activity and party for the the 1st and 2nd Grade classrooms, we made beautiful snowflakes out of iridescent pipe cleaners and an assortment of transparent purple, pink, clear, green, and red tri-beads. Both the 1st and 2nd Graders LOVED this.  One of the 2nd Graders said, "Wow.  We should sell these."  Hahaha.  Both classrooms were able to do this activity quite independently.  Definitely get the transparent, NOT opaque tri-beads because the transparent ones look so much better on the snow flake.  Also, try to find some of the silver iridescent pipe cleaners.  They look the best as well for this activity.

Materials Needed:
Transparent Tri-Beads (90 tri-beads per student)
Pack of 12" iridescent pipe cleaners(5 pipe cleaners per student)
Bowls or a Tray to keep the different colored beads organized

You can get tri-beads for pretty cheap on Amazon and also, ebay.  I used the following link, but did not use the pom poms or the fishing line part.

http://spoonful.com/crafts/sparkling-ice-crystals

Christmas Ornaments - Reindeer, Snowman, and Christmas Tree

After doing the Turkey Project, the students asked to do another project where they broke off into teams and had to follow instructions for the upcoming Christmas holiday.  They came up with the idea of making ornaments and broke off into reindeer, snowman, and Christmas tree teams.  They had a great time, and the ornaments turned out beautifully.  The kids hung the ornaments on the classroom tree and took the home before getting out for winter break.  If you would like to see the Microsoft Word instructions for the reindeer, snowman, and/or Christmas tree, then just let me know.

Working in Teams and Following Instructions

As November was approaching, this is an activity that was done with the 1st and 2nd Graders to make their own turkeys.  The students were split into teams of 4, where one person was designated as the leader.  Prior to beginning, we talked about what it means to be a leader and what it means to be a team member. 

Step by Step Instructions were given to each team lead.  I'm not seeing where I can upload a file, but that may not be a feature of this blog.  If you would like a copy of the word document, then just let me know.  Sorry about that.

This is what it ended up looking like.  The 1st graders ended up glueing their turkeys to their Thanksgiving Write-ups, which was really cute.  If you would like that word doc template for the Thanksgiving Write-up, then just let me know since I can't attach a file here.  The second graders decided to make pop-out cards with their turkeys, which turned out super creative. 

Dreamcatchers

This is one of the more challenging projects that we did in the 2nd Grade Classroom, but it was very fun and good practice for the students to do with their hand eye coordination as well as knot tieing skills.  You can find a set of 12 kits on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Express-48-2969-Catcher/dp/B00A8U7L72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391970404&sr=8-1&keywords=dreamcatcher+kit

Some of the students brought in extra beads and feathers to use for their dreamcatcher.  They really got into it and were so proud of their work.  It was also great because the students really helped each other out.

Prep Work:

Go ahead and tie the initial string around the hoop so the students can begin weaving once the project begins. 

Halloween Pop-Out Cards

These are so fun and were done with both the First and Second grade classrooms.  You can google Pop Out cards and see the numerous links and videos for how to make them.  Here are a couple links.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/halloween/ghostcard/

http://ohhappyday.com/2011/05/diy-pop-up-cards/

For the most part, all you need is:

• construction paper (orange/white/black)
• scissors
• glue stick
• sticker eyeballs (optional)
• fun halloween stickers (optional)
• cotton or filelr(optional)
• chalk (Use the side of the chalk and a small paper towel to create that smoky effect)(optional)

Prep Work:
If you have any cutouts you want to make like ghosts, pumpkins, bats, etc., then you can go ahead ad cut those out for the students to choose from.

This was my first time making these, and it was so much fun.  Feel free to get as creative as you want.  By the way, the inner piece of the construction paper doesn't have to be the exact size as the background.  It can have that layered effect also.  We did these on a Friday, and had so much fun :).

Learning about the Continents, Equator, and Oceans

This is a neat little project for the 2nd Grade kids and above to do to get better acquainted with geography as well as to decorate the classroom.  They can also be used later as Christmas ornaments :).

Materials:

• old or new blue wrapping tissue paper cut into square pieces
• glue stick
• tape
• scissors
• 4" smoothfoam or styrofoam ball (Joann's or Michaels)
• Map Picture (http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-166560/Earths-seven-continents-are-Asia-Africa-North-America-South-America?&articleTypeId=31)

• White Ribbon for hanging
• Glue Gun
• Ball Point Pen

 Prep Work:

• The foam balls are $4.49 for a two pack of the 4" Smoothfoam balls at JoAnne's.  You can use the 50% off a regular priced item coupon.  The room mom can assign half the parents to pick up the foam balls.  Have each parent contribute $1.50 to the classroom for the project.  This will cover the foam ball, tissue paper, and ribbon cost.  
• Make sure you cut enough of the blue tissue paper into 3x3 or 4x4 square pieces.  The kids will be using the pieces to glue stick to their foam ball.
• Print out enough copies of the map for each student.  Make 2 copies per student.  Cut out the outline of the 7 continents.  If there are a lot of students in the one classroom, have a few parents help with cutting out the continents by providing them with the color photo copies.
• Heat up the glue gun and go ahead and attach/glue each side of the white ribbon to the foam ball.  That way it will be ready for hanging once the kids are done with the project.

Project Time:

1. Give each student a foam ball with the ribbon attached to it and a printout of the map.
2. Put a stack of the cut out blue tissue squares for each table to use.
3. Have each student get his/her glue stick, tape, and ball point pen.
4. By applying the glue stick on the foam ball and attaching the blue tissue paper square pieces , the students will cover the ball.  This is the water for their globe.
5. Once the globe is covered with blue tissue paper, each student will tape the continent cutouts to their globe in their proper locations.
6. Once they are finished taping the continents to their globe, they can write the following onto their globe using the ball point pen.
1. Equator
2. Atlantic Ocean
3. Pacific Ocean
4. Indian Ocean
5. Arctic Ocean

Getting Organized and Being Efficient

As the school year started up, I soon realized that there were a number of school related events, deadlines, weekly activities, etc. to keep track of.  Both of my girls had some days where they had the same activities, but then there were days where one may have had P.E and the other did not.  In any event, I felt the need to put something in place for myself and other parents to help keep track of the school related activities, etc.  I quickly came across Shutterfly's Classroom Template.  I was using Shutterfly for uploading/printing pictures and photo books, but had not used the "Create a Site" feature before.  Let me just tell you.  It has become such a time saver and effective avenue for communicating with the parents in both classrooms.

 http://www.shutterfly.com/sites/create/welcome.sfly?fid=f2aef729dd462e686276141d224b0f78

Due to privacy rules and school policy, I do not post any pictures of the students to the classroom site.  However, photos of projects and classroom activities are posted.  For example, I do post pictures of the projects like the Earth-Space projects, Martin Luther King Stuff, Book Reports, Dioramas, Art Projects, etc.

Using the Classroom Template that Shutterfly "Create a Site" provides, I made some minor modifications.

How to Begin:

First, you just need the emails of at least one of the parents along with the students' names.  That way, the classroom site is restricted by email address.  You have to sign in with your email in order to view the site.  If someone doesn't have a shutterfly account, they just need to sign-up, but I think most people do.

When I received the roster for both my children's classrooms, I set up 2 sites, one for my first grader's teacher's class and the other for my 2nd grader's teacher's class. You can use the online wizard during the creation process, and it makes the process really easy and seamless. The Shutterfly sites are great for having a one stop shop for looking at classroom pics, project deadlines, classroom events and announcements, parent volunteer/parent-teacher conference sign-up information, etc. There is also a message board section where you can email all the members. I don't know about you all, but my email is a mess so this has helped me to keep track of deadlines, announcements, contact info, upcoming school events, volunteer opportunities, and sending out birthday invitations.

Second, the sites for both the 1st Grade and 2nd Grade Classrooms have the following tabs: Home, Calendar, Volunteer/Parent-Teacher Conference(I renamed the Volunteer tab to include Parent-Teacher Conference so it could be used for conference sign-up as well), Class List & Contacts, and Message Board.  You can customize and add/remove tabs from the site.  I only wanted to have the tabs that were needed for both classrooms.

On the Calendar, month to month, I post things like P.E. Day, Spirit Week Themes, Project Due Dates, Field Trips, Teacher Appreciation, Parent Appreciation, Classroom Events/Parties, School Performances, Open House Information, School Closing Days and Holidays, Parent Teacher Conference day, etc..  All the Calendar events are set to automatically email a reminder to all the site members one day before.  For events that are recurring like P.E., you can set up recurring events on the Shutterfly calendar as well.

When the teachers have a Parent Teacher Conference, Classroom Party, Request for Materials for the Classroom or Projects, etc., it's very easy to set that up under the Volunteer/Parent-Teacher tab on the site, and then quickly send an email to all the Classroom Parents.  

All in all, it's just a nice and efficient way of staying in tune with what is going on, keeping those communication lines open.  I use the Classroom News section on the home page to post commentary on certain projects or activities happening in the classroom.  It's cool because other parents have posted their replies, feedback, etc.  As parents of school-aged children, I think it's nice to be able to share experiences like this.

What I also really like about the Classroom Shutterfly site is that it takes a lot of the administrative duties off of the teacher so that he/she can focus more on the teaching and lesson plans as opposed to having to remember to send out reminder emails, coordinate sign-up sheets, etc.

I hope you found this posting useful.  For just a shutterfly classroom site, there is a lot to gain, right :)?

The Beginning

September 2013 was the start of the new school year for both my girls.  My younger daughter is in 1st Grade, and her big sister is in the 2nd Grade.  Having homeschooled my younger one for K, this was her first time going to school school.  We were all very excited to be starting at a new school and looking forward to meeting good people and learning new things.  The room mom role started within the first week of school.  My older daughter's teacher asked me if I would be the room mom for the class.  Honestly, I had no idea what that meant and had never heard of that role before.  I had heard of volunteers, but not room mom.  I asked her what that meant, and she explained that I would help out with parent coordination.  It sounded interesting so I accepted.  Within a couple weeks, I was also assigned to be the room mom for my younger daughter's 1st Grade class.  It is now February of 2014 so it's been a little over 5 months since the start of the school year.  So many exciting and creative things have happened this school year in my role as room mom.  As a result, I thought I would start a blog or diary of some sort to share with other room moms or parents of school-aged children.  I will tell you that studies have shown such positive impacts on both emotions and academics during the time kids are attending elementary school.  I can't tell you how true that has been for the students in both the 1st Grade and 2nd Grade classes with all the parent involvement, communication and projects.  You're heard the saying, "It takes a village."  That is so true.  Teamwork is EVERYTHING!  I hope you enjoy the postings for this blog as I take you through my journey as a room mom in the 2013-2014 school year.  Feel free to comment if you have any questions, feedback, or ideas.