Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Yummmmmm

I love Dr. Seuss.  

I know that's not a huge confession, as most anyone who's ever read any of his books feels the same way, however I REALLY love Dr. Seuss.

And like I've said before, give me theme, and watch me go wild.

Firstly, I wanted to do my nails in Dr. Seuss fashion.  I checked online, and found many cute ideas, and then realized, I didn't have any of the colors.  However, I do have the most thoughtful husband around. While at Target running some errands, he bought me 3 Dr. Seuss books, as well as matching nail polish.  So, that problem was solved.  

My Dr. Seuss "I love you" care package

I'm not very good at doing my nails yet, it's mostly just something I do while I'm watching TV or something.  So, I don't have a tutorial for the nails here.

All I do, is paint my nails a solid color, and then with a toothpick, I paint on any extra details.

This is how they turned out:

The Lorax, Cat in the Hat stripes, Truffula trees and a Thing 1!

After that, I had to think of some things I could do to decorate my classroom.  

I saw an idea on decorating a class door in Truffula trees on happymrsc.blogspot.com.  It didn't say how she made the trees themselves, so that's where my creativity had to come into play. 

For these Truffula trees you'll need:

Colorful tissue paper

Black construction paper

White paint (I actually used white out tape, for convenience sake)

Tape

Scissors

 I found some great, colorful tissue paper in our resource room, and got to work.  I folded the paper on top of itself, then cut the paper into about 2 inch strips, cut it like you would cut grass for a craft.  Then I would open it up, and fold it back onto itself, like this:

Then, I just started taping away, until the trees were the size I wanted.  Then, I added some black construction paper trunks, added some white stripes to them, and they were done.

The teacher in the room next to me, who is wonderful, and we do lots of things together, made a Lorax on her door, who is pointing to the Truffula forest on my door. 

THEN, our director asked me to make Truffula trees on the bulletin board in our drop-off room, which is a total "no-man's-land".  I was happy to do it, and perfect my Truffula tree technique.  Again, my wonderful husband came to the rescue, and came to help me out.  More cutting, taping and stapling, and:

Next, I needed to come up with something for my students to do.  That bulletin board looked like a perfect backdrop to me.  Also, I've been intrigued by the hipster mustache and bow tie craze, and I finally had a way to incorporate it into my lesson plans:

Dr. Seuss hipster photo props!

I found the original idea on blog.kidzui.com and then decided to make it my own.

Here's what you'll need:

Poster board (the number of kids you have, or size of your props will determine how much you'll need)

Pencil

Black Sharpie

Paint (orange, yellow, red)

Large Popsicle sticks

Tape

I drew out with pencil the outline for mustaches and bows.  Then I traced it with black sharpie.  I had the boys cut out the mustaches, and the girls cut out the bows.  Then, the boys painted their mustaches orange or yellow (even though, the Lorax's is yellow, I wanted to add just a little more color), and the girls painted their bows red or red and white striped.  After that, I taped the popsicle stick to the back, and voila!  Hipster Dr. Seuss photo props!  You could use this idea for a class party, like I did, or even a birthday party photo booth!  How cute would that be!?

My adorable kiddos!!!

Now that all that is done, let's party!

But wait!  What to wear, what to wear...?

If you know anything about, you are well aware of the fact, that I will pounce on any chance I get to dress up.  I'm not sure what it's rooted in - cough, cough - mom!!!

And because of said culprit, I am always partial to home made.  

So, when I decided I was going to be "Thing 1", I got cracking.  

What you'll need to be a "Thing":

Red T-shirt

White felt

Black Sharpie

Scissors

Plastic hairband

Blue yarn

Blue tissue paper (optional)

Hot glue gun

Felt circle

I found a red shirt for under $4 at Walmart, which I was very happy about, and even went back and bought it in a couple other colors, because it was comfortable, and nice and long.  Then, I found some great, heavy-duty white felt, for only $2.77 a yard.  Once home, I traced a circle onto the felt (I used a dinner plate as a guide), traced over it with black sharpie, and wrote "Thing 1" on it (I would suggest writing it in pencil first).  I had roped the same teacher from earlier into being "Thing 2" with me, and she had the genius and adorable idea of adding "Thing 3" to her growing baby bump.  So cute!  So, I also traced hers.

Then I cut it out, and because I wanted to be able to reuse the T-shirt, I only pinned it to my shirt. 

 

Next for the hair.

I found a great yarn wig tutorial on www.u-createcrafts.com, but decided it was a little more involved than I wanted.  However, I will be keeping this in my arsenal, I'm sure I will need it one day.

I decided to go for something a little more wearable, and cuter.  I have this clear, plastic hairband that I've had laying around for ages.  Also, I had some blue yarn (that was the perfect color) and some more of that tissue paper on hand.  

First, I covered the hairband in the blue yarn, using a hot glue gun, which wasn't really necessary, I just wanted it to look "finished".  Next, I did the exact same thing to the tissue as I did for the Truffula trees, and glued it to the felt circle I'd already cut out.  

After that, I wrapped the yarn around my fingers:

Then, tied it off with a small piece of yarn:

Finished product!

Then cut the yarn on the other side.  Then, I glued that to the felt circle too.  I kept doing that until it was the size that I wanted, and then:

Done!  (I feel like I should be on my way to a -
crafty, and laid back, but still - English wedding)

Next, a girl's gotta eat!

I found a super-cute idea on purplecarrotsinc.blogspot.com, and even a couple other places, for

 "Thing 1" cupcakes.  It's very simple.  It's just a red velvet cupcake, with a little cream cheese frosting and some blue cotton candy sticking out of it for the "hair".  Now, I'm going to tell you something that the other blogs didn't.

YOUR COTTON CANDY WILL MELT!!!

I made my cupcakes the night before, and everything was going great, I put the frosting on, and then the cotton candy, and they were adorable!  I turned to do some other things, and... when I turned back around the cotton candy had completely melted.  Now, I wasn't sure if it was because my cupcakes were maybe still a little warm (which they weren't, because that would be an amateur mistake, but I was looking into all the possibilities), or if it was the moisture in the frosting.

So, I wiped off the frosting and sad cotton candy.

I decided that I would frost the cupcakes, and then the next day, I would put the cotton candy on RIGHT before I served them.

So, the next day, I took them to school, and hoped for the best.  I did prepare, though for it not to work.  So, I made cupcake toppers.  I took some toothpicks with me to work.  Then I traced circles, went over it with sharpie, and decorated them.  Then, I taped them to toothpicks.  Really simple, really easy, but a tried-and-true way to spruce up some cupcakes.

Then, right before the party, I added the cotton candy.  (For the kids, I didn't add the toppers, I figured toothpicks weren't something they needed to have access to)

Here's what I had for the party 

(but there are so many more things you could add to a Dr. Seuss party menu):

Strawberry and marshmallow skewers (to look like the Cat in the Hat's hat)

Thing 1 and 2 cupcakes

Rainbow Gold Fish (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish)

Swedish Fish (same)

Then, for the teachers (I figured they could handle the toothpicks), I added the toppers.

Please pardon the ugly pan and backdrop.  There weren't many places I could take a picture of them.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Welcome to the Jungle!

The Jacksonville Jaguars!

That was the first thing that I thought of when I saw that we were doing the letter "J".

Let's just jump right in!  On Monday I like to do a craft that is in the shape of the letter, or reinforces the letter.

There are a lot of cute ideas on pinterest.com for jaguars, and the letter "J".  I kind of combined them, and also incorporated the number of the week.

Yes, I'm showing you mine, because my kids  didn't quite get the idea of the spots.  They were all in one place.

Like I've said before, I love hands-on learning.  So, I decided what's more fun than juicing!?  And we're in Florida, so what on earth could we juice?  Oh, so many things!

So, I got together every citrus I could get my hands on.

I got:

1 Lemon

1 Lime

1 Grapefruit

2 (organic, home-grown by a colleague) Oranges

2 Clementines

One of the other teachers had this great antique juicer, where instead of twisting, you squeeze down on two arms.  It was perfect, because the kids each got to take turns squeezing one of the fruit.

After all the fruit was squeezed out into different containers, we placed them in order of lightest to darkest.

After that, they got to taste each one, and then we put them in order of most sour to sweetest.

I wish you could've seen their faces!  So very cute!

Another craft that we did that week was making "jewelry" (bracelets).  It was perfect for fine motor skills, as well as creating/recognizing patterns.

jax4kids.com produces wonderful books for the children of Jacksonville on a regular basis.  I love them, because they always have to do with things that Jacksonville is known for, or proud of.  One morning, I put some of their books out as inspiration, and asked the kids to draw pictures of their favorite thing about Jacksonville.  Please let me share with you some of their art work.

This is the River City CLock Tower

This is Th Dames Point Bridge.

This is a Jaguar throwing a football.

Naturally, the beach!

Jaguars' Stadium.  (There's even a blimp!)

I was so impressed with their detailed work!  There are so many extraordinary and fun things to do and see in Jacksonville, so if you're reading and you've never been, you should make your way down (or up) here!

Finally, on Friday we had a letter "J" party.  I asked all the kids to wear something that started with the letter "J".  Such as: jeans, jumper, jewelry, jaguars jersey, any kind of jersey, jeggings (although, I was keeping my fingers crossed that none of my 4 year-old would show up in jeggings, and thank God they didn't.)

Then, we had snacks that started with "J"!  Jelly beans, Jello, juice, PB&Js, and we had it all on jungle themed paper plates!

There are so many fun "J" things to do out there, and all my kiddos seemed to have a great time!

Flowers, and Fish and Flamingos, Oh My!!!

For this week, our focus letter was "F".  

Now, I knew I wanted to do something with fish, because we do live in Florida, and my kids are familiar with fish.  Also, one of my favorite children's books is the Rainbow Fish.

On Monday morning, I read The Rainbow Fish to my kiddos, and incase you're not familiar with this book, here's it is.

This is a wonderful story about a beautiful but proud fish, who learns that sharing with his friends is what really makes a person happy.  Something my kids have been dealing with anyway.

So, after that we made our very own Rainbow Fish.

The week before, in my newsletter, I asked all the parents to bring in any used, never to be used again CDs.  I figured this was pretty safe, because most people I know have a bunch of their CDs laying around, from which they've already uploaded the songs onto iTunes.  

Turns out, I was right.  One mom even said "Don't judge me..." haha.  She brought in some New Kids On The Block Cds.

Here's what you will need.

1 CD

1 Googley eye

Rhine stone stickers (we used 13, because that was our number for the week)

Construction paper cut to be the tail and fins

Little piece of construction paper cut to be the mouth

Scissors

Glue

So, I gave each child a CD, then they got to stick the googley eye, lips and 13 rhine stone stickers on in, any way they liked.  This part needed a little supervision, because they really liked the stickers, and lost count, and just kept "decorating".  In a small class like mine, it was pretty easy to keep an eye on them, but just a quick FYI.

After that, they cut out the tail and fins, and glued those on.  I also had them cut out a black circle, the size of the CD to glue on the back, just in case they wanted to hang it, it would just look a little more "finished".

This project was great for many reasons.  With the rhinestones, they were constantly counting (after each sticker they recounted them), it tied in with the story they'd just heard, and the googley eye taught them perception, because each of them was like "he needs two eyes!", and then I could show them, that if they look at someone from the side, they can only see one eye.  Plus, of course fine motor practice.

So, here is the finished product:

On this week, we also started focusing on Valentine's Day.  I needed to come up with a bulletin board idea, but I wanted one that wasn't just "pink and read sparkly hearts".

I found this idea through pinterest.com on craftsy.com.

It's really simple and inexpensive, and looks SUPER cute!

What you'll need is:

Celery Stalk (use as many as how many different colors you want to you use)

Paint

Paper

Firstly, you'll need to cut the celery stalk, but make sure you leave enough to where each stem is defined.  Then, dip it in the paint, and you're ready to start stamping!

I bought 2 celery stalks, one for pink paint, and one for red paint.  Then, I also used a celery stem for the stem of the flower.

Our last craft that week was another fun one.  I got the idea for this from our principle.  Flamingos!

Pink flamingos!  Or, are they!?  What color are flamingos?  All kinds of shades of pink and peach.  

So, how do you come up with that?  Paint is always something that kids are a little hesitant to use, because it's messy, so they aren't usually allowed near it.  But I love hands-on learning!

For the fabulous flamingos, here's what you're going to need:

Pink paint

Orange paint

White paint

Paper

Sharpie

To start, I put out a cup of pink, a cup of orange, and a cup of white paint, and let the kids pour the three colors (however much they wanted of each) onto a paper plate.  

Then, I painted their hand with the paint, which they pressed down on the paper.  I gave the flamingo a neck, and then they pressed their thumb down for the head.  They also gave it some legs.  

AND, ta-ta-ta-daaa!!!

Floridian Flamingos, ladies and gents!

Gum Ball Machines and Guitars!

Ah, the letter G.  And the number 11.

There are many fun things that could go with the letter G.  As Dan and I were shopping at Wal Mart, I saw some Chinet plates, and the wheels in my head started turning.

I bought enough for two for each of my kids.  At school, I had each of them count out 11 pom poms into the one (one to one correspondence and fine motor).  Then they cut out the construction paper pieces.  While they were doing that, I taped the two plates together.  After they had cut them out, I hot glued them to the plates.  They turned out very cute.  Take a look for yourself.

Hmmm... what else could we make with the letter G... oh, I know!

A guitar!

Here's what you'll need:

A tissue box/shoe box/cereal box

4 rubber bands

1 paper towel roll

Scissors

Duct tape

I thought the tissue boxes would works the best, because they already had a hole, but actually, the show boxes worked best.  Also, some of them had cute patterns!

First, I had them cut an oval shape on the face of the box.  Then, I had them cut a circle on the top, the size of the paper towel roll.  Then, they put the four rubber bands on it long-wise, stuck the paper towel roll through the hole, and secured it all with some duct tape.  They are very cute, and do make little "ping"-ing sounds!  That same day, I brought in my husband's guitar, they got to try it, and we talked about how the thinner strings have higher notes, and the thicker ones have deeper notes.  

It was a very fun day, and I think they learned lots of new things, and had a couple new experiences.

Check out how precious these are.

Now go and have a "G"reat day! :)

Preschool Winter Theme

It's winter.  But it's Florida.  But it's winter.  But it's Florida.

This is the dilemma I was faced with when we were in our "Winter" theme at school.  It took a little to get into it, but once I did, you know there was no stopping me.

The first week, we reviewed the vowels.  We made these cute penguin crafts, where we cut "U"s out of black paper, and colored scrapbook paper.  We also cut out the little wings, eyes, beaks and feet.  They were super cute.

One of my kids, Andrey, always draws a smiley face after his name.  It makes my day every time!

That same week, I read them "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.  I love that book!

I just bought the 20th edition of it, and I am thrilled to have kids to read it to!

So, in honor of the book, we laced mittens.  

What you'll need:

Foam paper

Yarn/string

Scissors

Hole Punch

I made a mitten form, and then traced it twice on the foam paper.  They cut them out.  Then, punched holes around the edges,  I tied off the yarn, showed them how to do it, and then let them lace up their mittens.

In the meantime, I made a bulletin board.  Started with blue paper, painted some wintery, bare trees and some snow- tada!!!

So, that's how we do winter in Florida.