I Hope You "Dig" Your Summer!

I LOVE the Dollar Tree and spend way too much money there.  The parents at my son's preschool usually do goddie bags or a small gift at the end of the year.  I thought instead of putting together a goodie bag I would give each child a shovel with a cute label on it.  These can be given to your students as an end of the year gift or switch it up for a birthday party.  I made these LABELS to attach to the shovel.  Enjoy =)

Happy Mother's Day

I know Mother's Day is over and I hope everyone had a great day.  I sure did with my boys.  We spent the day at the boardwalk.  The weather was beautiful!!  My son was super excited to give me his gift that he made for me in school.  It was so cute I had to share.  I am definitely going to use this idea next year.  It is a low cost gift and practical because everyone uses bags.  You can pick these up at your foodstore for $1.00.  Their school mascot is the Bee, so the bees are my son's finger prints. Then attached to it is a coupon booklet.  Check it out....isn't this adorable?!

I would love to do this next year with my class.  I would like to attach a tag with some sort of poem.  Any ideas? 

"Lucky"

In honor of Teacher Appreciation next week I am putting together some gifts for my son's special area teachers.  His gym, music, spanish, art, and library teachers need some love too!  One gift that is easy to make and inexpensive is a lottery ticket gift.  You will need a lottery ticket for each teacher you wish to make it for.

This is a 3 inch punch that I bought at Michael's.  I think it was like 25 bucks, so make sure you bring a 40% coupon!

 I found super cute apple scrap book paper to make circle punches for the background.

I then added Trevor is "Lucky" to have you as a teacher!  Thank you for all you do!

I found these adorable tiny clothes pins and attached the saying to the lottery ticket.  You can also put the ticket in a bag and attach the saying on the outside.  The bag I used is a blue lunch bag and cut off the top to make the bag shorter.

Click  HERE for the saying.  Enjoy!

Look How We've Bloomed!

This is a cute display that I put in the hallway for the past couple years in May.  I send home a letter requesting each child bring in a baby picture and a picture of them now.  I have the kiddos decorate a cheap white paper plate with petals any color they wish by tracing their hands and cutting them out.    We have an Ellison die cut machine at school, so I cut out yellow circles for the center.  When they are finished I usually help them cut and glue their picture of them now in the center. Next, they glue a green sentence strip on the back to use for the stem.  On the bottom they trace their shoe for their "seed" on brown paper, cut it out, and glue it to the bottom of the sentence strip.  I write their names on the sentence strip and they always come out so adorable.  You can put brown bulletin paper covering the entire bottom so the seeds look like they are under ground.  Happy Spring!!

Teacher Appreciation Gift

I was searching the web for some creative Teacher Appreciation gifts for my son's teacher and came across The Tip Junkie.  I LOVE her blog.  I found this adorable crayon craft and feel in love with it.  I was super excited because I went to Michael's and found a shadow box for $3.99!!  Wahooo!!  The project was so easy...it took me 10 minutes!  The materials I used for this project was:  an 8 x 8 shadow box, crayons, hot glue gun, and a piece of card stock to print the teacher's name on and her initial.  I used green because that is her favorite color.  I can't wait to have my play room, so I can do this for my boys!!  Teacher Appreciation is May 2nd-May 6th, so make sure you have something special for your kiddos' teachers:)

Click  HERE for the template:)

Thank you to Lisa from Rainy Tuesday Mornings!!!

Close your eyes and make a wish!

This is one of my favorites!  It comes out super cute and it is pretty easy to make.  After reading the book Wish: Wishing Traditions Around the World we close our eyes and think about all the things we wish.  My students then brainstorm their wishes and then they get to type a paragraph about their wishes.

 Yes, they are dandelions! I used white yarn and wrapped the yarn around my hands several times pulled it off and then tied a knot around it. I then cut the loops. I hot glued the flowers on black paper.  The next time I do this I would like to take pictures of the kids blowing and making a wish.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

I love putting this out at my writing center during April.  My old umbrella and prompts were getting old looking, so I just made new ones.  This is a simple way to have fun with writing during the month of April.  The umbrella is from the Dollar Tree and I created the raindrops using text boxes on top of raindrop clipart.  Your students will love to pick raindrops from the umbrella and begin writing.  Click HERE to print the raindrops.  Print on cardstock and laminate, so they last longer.

You will need fishing string, an umbrella, and the raindrops.

The best part is this folds right up and it's easy to store.