Month: May 2011

Cinco de Mayo Fun!

Today we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. We ate tortilla chips and mango salsa. Then we played CINCO BINGO with numbers I called out.  (20 + 20 + 1 or 5 tens 3 ones or 1 quarter plus a dime) and kids had to figure out the numbers before they placed their bingo chip. They are getting good at this.

After about 3 games and 6 winners later, we read 2 Weekly Readers and read all the picture captions. Then we created a mariachi art project on a Mexican flag.   And sang a song to the tune of the ABCs.

We sing this song using percussion instruments!

 I had made up a spinner with Mexican words the kids might not know.  Then we read the book FIESTA (that is in an old literature series we still have in our closet at school_  It tells about how Mexican kids celebrate Cinco de Mayo in their community. After discussing some of the new vocabulary in the book we had kids come up and spin the vocabulary spinner. Then they had to use the word in a sentence. Everybody was great at it.

We did our vocabulary test this week using some of the Spanish Words we learned.

Then we passed out Mexican sombreros for art and some Oriental Trading stickers on the Mexican theme. They colored, cut out and decorated their sombreros.  We counted up to 10 three times in Spanish. Then I’d ask the kids “What is ocho, what is tres?” They loved it!

Here we are just before our 1st Grade Musical called “Seasons Change”
Boy did they do a fantastic job dancing the Maypole Spring dance!!!

While they were working I read them The Tortilla Factory. They loved eating their plates of tortilla chips and salsa with mango and peach. Mmmmmm….. Some years I buy a pinata or we make little ones out of brown paper bags and tissue paper with a donkey head. I usually fill the pinatas with colorful taffy. A cute book on pinatas is Curious George Pinata Party by H.A. Rey. It also has the spanish right along with the English words.

Everybody picked out 7 stickers to put on their hats.

We did the hats in red, green and yellow
The Mexican Hat Dance is one of the cute songs on the Dance CD

Lastly, we have to do the Mexican Hat Dance. I have a Dance Party CD that I use all the time for many holidays. It was a great purchase! And we make speech bubbles with “talking marks” of what the Mariachis were saying to one another and put them and our hats up on the bulletin board. We call the quotation marks 66 and 99 (the number words) in my class. Kids love to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!

To the Picasso of Mothers! Happy Mother’s Day!

 
                           Picasso’s Version

I love this art project.  Look up the website Mrsbrownart.com at this link HERE. Scroll down to first grade art projects. Look for this Picasso re-creation.  I have a story to go along with it.

 When Daniel, my youngest boy went to a gifted 1st grade class in  California, his gifted teacher Mrs. Seaton did this project for a Mother’s Day card.  I treasure this card so much. I love the handwritten message to me. It means even more because we lost this child when he was in a car accident 5 years ago.

 I never knew which of the masters this particular teacher had used as a model but I remember hearing that they had used a famous painter as inspiration. I loved the card so much.

I told that story to a parent helper one day 4 years ago just before Mother’s Day. We were just cutting out hand tracings for the Mother’s Day card..  She went out and bought the print of Picasso’s work that week, and the class parents presented it to me with a lovely note, a teacher bag with all the kids’ “finger” prints on it made into insects (I’m a science nut teacher and they all knew it) and a  gift certificate to my favorite store, Kohls.

Now, the Picasso copycat art…. it isn’t just a beautiful card that I got once from a very sweet little first grade son of mine; it is also a labor of love from parents who showed they cared about me, the teacher. I loved that gift from the heart and I treasure it.  And every year as we do our Mother’s Day cards I think of my little first grade Danny Moss. And I think of the parents and kids of my class of 2018 and I smile. You’ll be in my heart forever guys…  Happy Mother’s Day to all the fantastic moms out there! Enjoy your special day!

Mother’s Day Ideas

MOTHER’S DAY GIFT IDEAS….

  1. Every year it seems like I reinvent the wheel and come up with another kind of mom’s day gift. I love having the kids write a card. I have them put their handprint on the front in some cute way. Then they write a really nice letter inside telling their mom things like; I think you cook ______ really good.  My favorite thing you do with me is ________. Things like that with specifics. I loved learning that one of my boys loved me to make Taco Salad. I never knew till I got his first grade card!

Then we make some sort of gift. Here are some I’ve done in the past. 

  1. Make a recipe book with recipes from the students and a real recipe from the moms on the back. Copy them into a class book. Put a picture on the front of each and decorate with scrapbook paper.
  2. Make a silouette with each child’s black silouette on the front and a letter/card on the back.
  3. Get some rinsed out baby food jars or small sauce jars from the kids. Use a solution of half water half glue. Paint on 2 inch squares of pastel tissue paper. You can also use modge podge. Fill each glass jar with a voltive candle. Wrap with tissue paper and ribbons when dry. 
  4.  Get Dollar Store whisks and fill with any type of wrapped candies. Wrap up with celophane and ribbons. Add a note “Whisking you a Happy Mother’s Day!”

    5.                                       

  5. 2. Have kids bring in some short, fat cans like pinapple or fruit cans or could even be soup cans. Cover with pastel scrrapbook paper. Line the top with a coordinating ribbon. Cover inexpensive Bic pens with floral green tape and add a flower to the eraser area. Put the finished “flowers in your “pot” by adding rice or dried beans. Voila! A cute pot with flowers. 
  6. Pot some soil in a small ceramic or clay pot. Have students paint hearts and kisses and flowers on with acrylic paint. Tie a ribbon around the rim. Add alphalpha or grass seeds to the dirt. Let it grow for a week or so. When it is high send it home with a cute scrapbook paper note that says “I love you with every hair on my head!”.
  7. Make bath salts out of Epsom salts and scented oils. Wrap in celophane with cute ribbons. Attach a poem;  Roses are red, violets are blue, here’s some bath salts I made just for you! Stamp a KISS on the bottom of each card with red ink.  
  8. Hand Prints out of clay glazed and fired. I’ve actually never done this yet. It would be a lot of work.

It will have to be a surprise which one we are doing THIS year! hehehe…..

Free happy Mother's day Themed printable stationary(stationery) and happy Mother's day border paper for school teachers and students

Bath Salts Recipe-
3 cups Epsom salts
1 tablespoon glycerin
perfume (or lotion)
two drops of food coloring
 Combine glycerin and food coloring. Add perfume to make a fragrant mixture. Then add to Epsom salts. Stir thoroughly. When it’s dry wrap in celophane and pink ribbons.

Some of my favorite books about a mom’s love for her kids.

Here is how to make a box for your mother’s day presents.You can make another one that will fit over this one and make a little “box” to put a cute treasure inside. One year I got kits to make up beaded bracelets from Oriental Trading. It was surprising how well the kids did on beading. It was easy for them. Then we put them inside a cute box made from hot pink paper and put some heart stickers on the top.  You could use scrapbook paper or neon papers.


I’ll post the ones we decide to do this year.   Happy Mother’s Day!