Valentine's Buckets & Teacher Gifts

My students decorated large cans (recycled from our cafeteria!) to hold their Valentines. They loved adding their own personal touch to them and lots of stickers didn't hurt either!

Our third grade team gave the students glow bracelets for Valentine's Day. I really like to trend of not always giving candy out with the cards.

Colorful Penguin Art

I found this art project through Pinterest and knew my students had to do it! We used foam brushes and make stripes on color on our background. I told the students not to clean off their brushes between color changes so there would be good blending of colors.

Then, we tore a snowy hill for our penguins to stand on. Putting our color background aside, we got to work on constructing our penguins. Students used black paper and made a tombstone-like shape for the penguin body and then a second, smaller one in white for the penguin belly. Next, we used our scrapes to create eyes and wings. Finally, we added an orange beak and feet. A little rubber cement and the penguins were safely on their snowy hills with bright backgrounds.
Here is my penguin:

 

Student penguins:

Snow/Cold Day = Cooking Day!

Well, no school for us today! That means new recipes to try and treats to make for me :)

The first thing I made was pull-apart (or monkey) bread. We had some extra Pillsbury Grands Biscuits on hand and I searched Pinterest for a treat to make. And this recipe was SO EASY! Basically, you cut the biscuits in fourths, roll them into balls, then roll each ball in sugar & cinnamon, plop it in your Bundt pan, top with a brown sugar syrup, and bake for 30 minutes at 350*. For the full recipe, visit Main St. Cuisine.

 

In my crockpot right now is Hash Brown Potato Soup! The best part of this recipe is the simplicity of it. Instead of peeling and boiling potatoes before even beginning the soup, you only have to use frozen hash browns. Such a time saver! To get the full recipe, visit Pearls, Handcuffs, and Happy Hour.

Leaf Sponge Art

I was inspired while on Pinterest (imagine that!) to make a fall art with my 3rd Graders. I found four leaf outlines through an internet search. I printed these and traced them onto posterboard. Each leaf was taped to a half-sheet of white construction paper. Brown, orange, red, and yellow paint was sponged onto the paper. After the sponging is complete, pull off the cardstock leaf and reveal your beautiful fall foliage art!

 

 

Cursive Handwriting Check

My 3rd graders "graduated" from their Cursive Handwriting book the first week in January. Since then, I have been writing (almost) everything in cursive. I have found that they are able to write in cursive, but it is hard for them to read the cursive. This is especially true since everyone has a bit different cursive style (it is handwriting, afterall!).

Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences are coming up and I want my students to have a product to show their parents about cursive. I found this idea for Kindergarteners to practice writing with using their classmates as "things" to write about. I decided to amp it up a bit and have my students use the same format, but to write the names in cursive. They LOVED it! It was fun for them to write their friends' names.

I am excited to have parents see what their child has learned in cursive. Here are a few shots of them working on their writing.:

 

 

 

 

Looking A Lot Like Christmas

Our classroom is holding an Old Fashioned Christmas celebration. We have handmade ornaments (cinnamon-applesauce, folded paper, cut snowflakes, and glitter pine cones) and today we decorated and sewed stockings to our Secret Santa gifts. Each student will bring in a secret gift (an identical set for the entire class) and stuff the stockings in our class. On our Winter Party day, we will empty out our stockings and see all the awesomeness we received.

Can't wait to see the smiles on their faces when they see all their stockings hung up in the morning :)

We also wrote stories about Santa being stuck in our chimney (or door or window...)!

Made It Monday

I'm linking up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for Made It Monday! For today's Made It Monday, I made boys' & girls' restroom passes and their Secret Service kindness projects.

I picked up a couple hand santizers at the dollar store to make my restroom passes. Then, ripped off the labels to get them a little more fishy! I found cute merman & mermaid cliparts and labels boys'/girls' restroom passes. A little ModgePodge and they are ready to keep germs away starting the first day of school!

Secondly, one of my 3rd grade teammates suggested we try out The Fickle Pickle's Secret Service kindess encouragement project. This activity has been all over Pinterest, so I'm sure many of you have seen it! The students are given a "secret mission" to spread kindness all around them! Instead of making "can't do"/"must do" rules for our classrooms, we are going to talk about what our classroom should look and sound like. This secret service project will help the students understand that they can practice kindness everywhere they are!