2015 – Page 2 – Patties Classroom

Kids Write About Pets

We have to do opinion writing and narrative writing this year and it has to be rubric scored. So I have to teach topic sentences and supporting sentences.

Krew wrote about his Two Favorite Pets.

I found the cute writing paper FREE from TPT. HERE is the Link. It was from Casey Hallett. Thanks Casey!

Here was our finished bulletin board of Kids Writing About Pets. We had 2 fish. The rest were dogs and cats. No birds.

Favorite Pets is always a good first writing project for first graders. They all have an opinion about the best pets in the world.

I like to give the kids a fun prompt to get them thinking. So we picked the topic of Pets. Everybody but one child had a pet at home so that made it easy. The one who didn’t have a dog or cat, made up what his favorite pet would be.

They are pretty good at following directions. Koby’s fish likes to do back flips!!!

I also had the kids do an art project with just a bunch of cut out pieces for bodies, heads, tails and ears and they chose their favorites.

I used gray, yellow, orange, brown and black paper so there are many fun combinations.
1. The body was an upside down U shape.
2. The heads were heart shapes. (2 different sizes)
3. The faces were all circles (2 different sizes).
4. The ears were ovals and triangles.
5. The tails were smile shapes.
6. I gave them each 2 white stickers for the eyes. The kids did the rest.

Cute Dog and Cat Art.

I called them up in groups of 4 and they picked their shapes for their pets. I told them they didn’t have to really match the real pet. They were just doing dog and cat art.

We are still working on capitalization in our First Grade Writing. . It will take a few more weeks to get it down. 😀

A few things I found online to add to centers the week we wrote about pets were some cute vocabulary pictures and words from TPT HERE. Some fall writing papers are HERE.

Great Writing Mia!

Here are our finished edited writings. We went through the whole writing process with a topic web, sloppy copy, teacher edit and final copy. I think they turned out great.

Clouds and Weather

We are about done with our Weather Unit this week. Here are some of our fun activities we did….

A song we sang about Clouds to the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider”.

We made Cloud Flip Books. We wrote facts underneath each type of cloud picture. Then we added the cotton balls underneath the flaps and then wrote about each cloud type.

Here are the cotton ball clouds and the definitions of each type.

Cloud flip books…they turn out really neat.

CLOUD TYPES FLIP BOOKS AND CLOUD ACTIVITIES….

This poem I typed up and we put one on the back of our Cloud Flap Books. I always do poems on the back of art for shared reading and we try to sing them to a familiar tune like ABC song, Jimmy Crack Corn or Row Row Row you Boat.

. Check out the Scholastic News website for great info and pictures on Clouds. I order the Scholastic News every year. A lot of times I save the science ones to use with my units.

Poster I leave up on the board during our Cloud activities.

We read this Cloud Choral Reading and these 2 books on Clouds and the Cloud Poem too!

The Weekly Reader/Scholastic News have a product called Science Spin. I order that every year for an extra dollar or so per student. I use them because I have no science textbooks. I also order a lot of science reading literature and always keep it at the SCIENCE CENTER. It is the most populated center every day.

The Cloud Book By dePaola, Tomie

Cloudette By Lichtenheld, Tom

I’ve accumulated quite an array of weather books over my 20 years of teaching. Here are a few.

Some of the Weather Books and Scholatic News on weather we read this week…..

Another thing I usually do is have the kids make a wind pinwheel as part of learning about tornadoes and hurricanes. It is just made with a square, and we curl up each triangle and pin it to the top of a pencil eraser. Then we go outside on a windy day and watch our creations twirl. This one had some cute stars and swirls on it.

The next day we did some Water Cycle Activities. We Read a Weekly Reader on the Water Cycle that had a cool diagram.

We made these Water Cycle Wheels too…I like the vocabulary listed …we test on two of these words; evaporation and precipitation on our weekly vocab quiz. A Cloud and Weather Vocabulary word sort can be found HERE free at TPT.

I loved this water cycle activity pack that I found FREE from TPT. Check it out HERE. It was easy for my kiddos. The water cycle wheel I got from another teacher I believe she got it from a book.

Pinwheels are a fun way to start the day learning about wind and all the types of windy weather and the damage it can do.

Some free weather stationery is HERE. And HERE is a printable of all types of weather in a cute blackline from Scholastic that you could use to make your own magnet matching game like mine below. You do have to subscribe to Scholastic and pay a small fee to get these though. I bought my game below from a teacher supply store.

This was a WEATHER center game. I had added velcro to the back and they used the carpeted wall to match the word to the weather picture. I left all the weather books at the Science Center along with this game.

I have an auto harp I play and the kids love singing songs to the music. HERE was a water cycle song we sang to the tune of “IT’S RAINING IT’S POURING”. I also have about 2 dozen types of instruments and some drums and xylophones so we never lose interest in singing to science texts. Check out my store above to see some great deals on musical instruments. I especially love the blue boxed xylophone. It was only $20.00 and I bought 3 for my classroom. The kids love to get them out when we sing and 2 kids will pay them to keep the rhythm with bells. Here is a pack of freebies from TPT Check it out!

The Water Cycle poster I keep up while we are doing our water cycle wheels and singing our songs.

Here is another Water Cycle Song:
Tune: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
Here we go round the water cycle, water cycle, water cycle.
Here we go round the water cycle, each and every day.
The ocean water evaporates, evaporates, evaporates,
The ocean water evaporates and makes tiny drops.
The clouds condense to make a raincloud, make a raincloud, make a raincloud,
The clouds condense to make a raincloud, and some feel really heavy!
The heavy drops precipitate, precipitate, precipitate,
The heavy drops precipitate, to make water accumulate. (puddles, lakes, rivers, and underground wells)
Then it’s time to start again, start again, start again,
Then it’s time to start again, the never ending Water Cycle!

We make a rotating water cycle wheel on a brad, coloring it and cutting it out. On the back we have a Water cycle poem or one of these songs I’ve typed up.

We read lots of books on the results of Wicked Weather. And the Phillipines Typhoon came right along when we were discussing weather damage.
SCIENCE EXPERIMENT: TORNADO TUBE

This is a Tornado Tube. I put 2 empty 2 liter bottles together with one of them filled with water. The kids loved coming up and twirling it around till it made a tornado. You can get the Tornado Tube from Steve Spangler Science. I think it is about $3.00 plus shipping.

We made a puzzle with the 3 types of violent weather types (lightening, tornadoes and hurricanes) and glued them down after discussing safety during each one.

I had the kids put together a page of 3 cool puzzles; tornadoes, hurricanes and lightening. This is what it looks like before .

The last thing we did was making a thermometer with paper.Check it out HERE. We talked about hot and cold, cool and freezing weather and what temperature each would be. Then I showed them lots of coats, sweaters, bathing suits etc. and asked what temperature each would be.

We made thermometers and learned what temperature spring, summer, winter and fall weather would be….

A few more worksheets are at Superteacher Worksheets.. Then we did some temperature worksheets like these Here at www.education.com. We had a great time learning about WEATHER!

A weather crossword I use in my weather unit is HERE at teach-nology.com. Some years I have them also do a WEATHER ACROSTIC POEM or we write a story after reading Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

A cool reader’s theater script I found on the story of the water cycle can be printed free HERE at Grandview Library. It is from Enchanted Learning. It’s cute and would make the kids use their imagination. These are some cool Youtubes I found that the kids like. I have a hard time choosing between them but I usually show one or two during the 2 week unit.

Weather videos from Youtube great for learning Water Cycle.

Water Cycle Youtube with some fun singing.

Another cute song….on CLOUDS! In the book CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS there were lots of bad weather where food rained all over the city. If we have time we will use our short week next week to write funny stories about our favorite foods raining on our city in Sandy or Draper, Utah. That will be pretty interesting to read about!

Some Weekly Readers and Language Arts writing we did….

We used THIS STORY WEB to begin with problem, solution, setting and characters. A fun website that has lots of fun online graphics and activities is at Webweather’s site.

weather	hailstorms	hurricane	tornado
funnel	fog	cloudy	water vapor
cirrus cloud	stratus cloud	nimbus rain cloud	cumulus cloud
evaporation	precipitation	violent weather	lightening

Here were some of the WEATHER vocabulary words we studied for the week and added to our science pocket chart too. Weather is one of my favorite units to teach. The kids all love learning about it.

I know an Old Lady

In the upcoming weeks we will be learning about the 5 food groups, the food pyramid, healthy choices for exercise, food, and washing our hands so we don’t get germs or sicknesses spreading around the classroom. Here are a few fun activities we did!

First we read the story There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly….after which we made our own!

I put the story at the listening post with the felt lady and it is always super popular! Go figure. I used this store purchased felt lady to design our paper reproductions.

I drew this Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly freehand! Woot! The animals are below along with the rhyming text.

The kids had fun reading the story text along with dropping the corresponding animal down the lady’s mouth.

I have a parent helper cut out the “tummy” and put a piece of old overhead projector acetate behind it and tape it up. Then the kids colored them and we backed them with colored paper, leaving a little place from her hand down to her hemline open to retrieve the “animals”. They colored animals that went along with the story.

I also typed up the words to go along with all the animals in The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly….

These have been very engaging for the students. They really loved doing this activity to go along with our Healthy Lifestyles unit.

I am going to have the kids write their own “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a ______” innovations. I have typed up a story frame. We will work on it for a few days and I can’t wait to see what creative things the kids come up with!

Everybody’s Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly looked a little different.

Then we do a fun activity putting different foods in the “Old Lady Who Swallowed Stuff’s” belly. I have each table of kids discuss what should go in the trash and what she should eat to make her healthier. We talk about things that we should eat sparingly like cookies, french fries and candy.

We have read all of these innovations on the original “There Was an Old Lady” books. Some of them were really funny. There was an old lady who swallowed a fly

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly

This Activity was really cute for a CENTER GAME. Use a MRS. BUTTERWORTH’S empty syrup bottle to “feed” the old lady words using beads and pipe cleaners. I saw a cute picture of it on Pinterest. It’s from Housingaforest.com.

Some of my collection of “There Was an _______ Lady who Swallowed _______” books.

Check out another book title THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED SOME CLOVER and activities to go with it HERE. She makes the old lady to “feed” by placing this picture in front of an empty tissue box.

We could have been saving tissue boxes all year. This would be cute to do in March to go along with St. Patrick’s Day! Another one I found is HERE at kidzclub. It is free and printable. Click here then go to black and white. Don’t click on the picture.

Another activity I had for a fast finisher is this wordsearch HERE from Buildingstrongchildren. The book text you can use to sing along is HERE at bogglesworldesl.com. Just click on the old lady page links. Cute pictures too! A MATH roll and cover “Old Lady” is HERE at TPT.

Then we watch this Youtube on Healthy foods and we listen to a 5 a Day song tape from DOLE while we worked on coloring and cutting out our Little Old Ladies. HERE are a bunch of printables for kids on Healthy Eating topics.

We read this reader’s theater on Mr. Energy and how he keeps his body in good shape by eating right. We didn’t have time to do the puppets.

Here is a list of book to read kids to help them understand the good things we can eat to make us healthy and fit. Check them out HERE at Babble.com.

We read this scholastic news, watched the Magic School Bus video to go along with it. Then we used my two classroom stethoscopes and listened to our own hearts beating after we came back from P.E. on Thursday. Some of the kids listened to their neighbor’s hearts. They were amazed!

Stethoscopes for listening to our healthy hearts and pedometers to count our steps at recess. We talked about how important exercise is and how eating lots of fatty, fried foods can line your arteries with yucky goop called cholesterol that can block your blood’s flow from your heart and cause heart attacks. Everybody had a relative who had heart issues. They were very interested in heart health! Amazing!

Well our Government is going from the food pyramid to the “food plate” thinking it will be easier for kids to understand. Maybe it is. Check it out above. A fun online interactive game we will play in computer lab is HERE.

We colored this “food Groups” worksheet and stapled it and the foolish old lady on the back of their Little Old Lady health projects so they could read them to brothers and sisters at home and replay and act out the story.

This was a very funny poem about a lady who overeats on junk food that the kids LOVED! And we also read the riddles and they figured out what food groups were the answers.

A fun center that the kids loved was my felt food pyramid with felt pieces to place in the right places. Then they each made their own pyramid for their desk as a fast finisher this week.

The Food Pyramid Flannel Board activity center……

Good nutrition Worksheet we did this week.

We also used the vocabulary words Nutrition and Healthy this week as part of our 10 vocabulary words. Everybody got 100% on the test too! Woo Hoo!

These were really cute made up on the kids’ desks….I think I got this from 5 a Day at Dole. Check out Dole’s Website HERE. I’ve gotten lots of free activities from them because I asked.

We will keep writing our innovations on the book The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and post them next week when we are all done! I can’t wait to see the finished stories!

Planning Kids Parties

Planning Kids Parties has become one of my very favorite things to do. I was just thinking the other day about how many kids parties I have planned and put on. It must be over 200! I had 4 kids and and 1 husband and they each had a Birthday Party every year till I cut the kids off at age 30. Plus I’ve taught young kids in school for 21 years. And we have about 5 parties a year. And I’ve been activities chairman in my church 3 times and president of the Stake Primary (children’s organization). So in all the parties, I’ve learned a thing or two that might help somebody else in their planning. Here are a few of my ideas to keep it simple but fun.
Planning Kids Parties can be lots of fun if you keep it simple. Crafts using food are always a hit. HERE is a Frozen Party I did last year for my grandkids. It was a riot.

There is always the funny chaos that erupts when you have ten or more boys come over and do roudy games. There is always a kid who cheats, always one who is uber competitive and starts to get mad when he is losing or not winning. There is always somebody who breaks something in your house. (word to the wise, have that party at a park or splash pad, or even Chuck E. Cheese or at a swimming pool if you can).

Planning kids parties can be as simple as reserving a space at a city pool or splash pad and having cake and ice cream. Or you can get more creative!

I always made the mistake of stressing out over being sure my entire house was perfectly clean before the party began. I would work for days like a dog scubbing toilets, floors, making up the rooms so they all looked good, vacuuming every square inch of carpet and planning and baking a really darling cake to go with the themed invitations and party take-home bags. It was so exhausting, I don’t know how I had energy to run all those games, pinatas and crafts!
Look at how pretty pops of colors in linens and little striped straws add to the refreshment table. You can always do a solid color on the tables and add another color with your plates and cups.

And then when everybody’s parents came to pick their kids up at the end of the party, the house looked like a bomb had exploded in it. I was always so embarrased thinking “what are they thinking of my messy house!” I was waaaaaay too worried about stuff like that. NEVER clean your house before the party. Clean it up AFTER the party. Because, guess what? It’s going to be a total mess.
Bubbles are a good sponge activity when kids first get to the party, or they are also a simple party favor to take home. And they can help decorate your party table too with the bright colors!

I had 24 little 5 year-old kinders in my class this year. And 19 of them were boys. I can tell you who makes my classroom messy for the most part. It is those 19 little boisterous boys who just destroyed the center games each and every day. I would have to go search to find a missing puzzle piece to a puzzle or pick up the plastic dollar store bugs and find the lost magnifying glasses at the science center daily! And the magnet center would have the letters and numbers mixed up no matter how many times I lecture to the kids to keep them in the separate bins.

Notice the pirate banner, cardboard parrots, red striped napkins, pirate bandanas and linens and skeleton heads. Fun Party Refreshment Table. Check out more from this party HERE.

Little kids make messes. And the littler the party guest, the more they forget their etiquette and training when they walk in your front door. All their manners get forgotten for the most part because if little Johnny next door is standing on his chair and throwing his jelly beans into little Suzy’s glass of lemonade, they all start standing on chairs throwing jelly beans too.

This was such a fun activity for the kids; face painting using stencils and glittery glue made it SO EASY. You can buy the kits on Amazon.
Glitter Stencils kits are fun for Kids Parties. You just stick on a stencil, dab on some glue and then use a paintbrush and dab on glitter. Then remove the stencil and you have a cool face painted glittery butterfly or flower.

Parents are always surprised by this follow the leader fun. But it happens in my classroom on a daily basis. I find myself saying that dumb analogy “If your friend jumped off of a cliff would you copy him doing that silly thing too? I don’t know why I do that. They always look at me blankly.

Another favorite for a party is my stuffed potato skins. Everybody loves them. Even kids!

My two little granddaughters at my Halloween Party one year. We were all dressed up as ladybugs (and bees.)

I loved having everybody sing happy birthday to my kids. It was a moment where they had all the attention of everybody important to them in their lives. I think that it is a great tradition. I’d do it all over again because a birthday party makes you feel special. I still remember my 9th birthday party. I had 9 girls come over for cake, games and crafts. And I still have the little ceramic girl holding a 9 that one of my guests brought me for a present. Then my mom let 1 of my best friends sleep over that night after dinner. It was such a fun and memorable day.

Making bead bracelets is always easy. Get pony beads from the craft store and chenille stems (pipe cleaners). Kids lace the beads on the pipe cleaners, twist at the ends and cut them to fit their wrist. Easy Peasy! Get the colors of your theme. You can tell this is a Valentines theme party. I love making Valentines Sugar Cookies with my family AND my classroom kiddos. Use this idea to decorate cookies on St. Patrick’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday, or for any kid’s birthday party. If you have candy to top it with, you will be a complete success with kids.

There are always those parents who drop their kid off at your party and don’t return on time. They use you as a free babysitter and go get their hair done and return an hour late. I did that once when we were babysitting my daughter’s girls for a week. I just needed some errands run without kids so I did use her friend for babysitting. I apologized later. And I know how it is. But it is still hard when you are the party hostess and you are so burned out and tired and there are still 2 little boys running around your house when the party was over an hour ago.

How fun would making snowcones or cotton candy be at a birthday or family party? Lots of fun and so easy too. Just rent the machines for around $75.00 for a few hours.

Anyway, here are my ideas to make a really fun party and not get too overwhelmed. I’ve taught kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades for 21 years so I’ve done a TON of kids parties.

We played Pin the Tail on the Bunny. It was so sweet to watch. And there was no peeking! Amazing! We have also played Pin the Gold on the Leprechaun, Pin the Nose on Olaf, Pin the tail on the Goat, for a big kid turning 30 (my son thinks goats are really funny) and Bunny for Easter themed party.

Get some cute invitations from the party store. Invite no more than 12 kids. There will always be a few who can’t come and although 8 is a perfect number, (don’t all the party supplies come in a group of 8?) but 3 is a dud. (we’ve had a few of those too). So call and remind people the day before and to see who is coming. You can always invite cousins or an auntie or somebody else too. We (the grandparents) always get invited to the grandkiddie parties. It is a lot of fun, and we can help with the little brothers and sisters still in diapers. I give out invitations with only 1 1/2 hours for each party. If it is 2 hours everybody starts to get cranky, including YOU!

Lots of times you can find printable games online to use at your themed kid’s party. This one was for my grandkids to play Tic Tac Toe on the 4th of July. This would be a perfect activity when people first arrive.

When Kids Arrive – Have a sponge activity when everybody gets there. Have a craft to do, or a physical game to play like duck duck goose, or just a swingset or a coloring page with colors or bouncy house.

Pin the Nose on Olaf game I made last year for a school and grandkid’s Frozen Party.

At one party my daughter had them all do a foam visor with their name on it as soon as they arrived. Then later she had another more involved craft. The visor just had stickers. Kids love making hats of any kind. That is always a great sponge activity that takes up time till everyone arrives. A good before everybody gets there activity can be Magnets using Dollar Store magnets and cookie sheets to play.

Party Games – Have 2 activities. One can be a noisy one (pinata, pop the balloons, scavenger hunt, bean bag toss etc., and one a quiet one that takes longer (bingo game, craft, decorate a cookie, pin the tail on the theme animal, etc. Here are a list of my favorites.

1. Pin the Tail on the Donkey (bunny, elf, pirate patch, nose on the snowman or Olaf)
2. Bean Bag Toss into a cardboard theme character with holes.
3. Decorate a cookie or cupcake.
4. Make a necklace, hat or bracelet with beads or stickers or foam of some kind.
5. Bingo game on a theme of some sort.
6. Hot Potato (use a stuffed pumpkin, or heart, or snowman, any soft stuffed animal can become the potato).
7. Musical Chairs or Fruit Basket.
8. Pinata or Treasure Hunt
9. Bowling using a tennis ball and paper cups with pictures on them.
10. Face Painting using stencils and glitter glue.

Filling clear cookie jars with candies and colored ornaments is always great to add to the refreshment tables and it is easy decor.
Pumpkin Bean Bag Toss my hubs made for us out of plywood that we spray painted orange. We get to play with it every year at my classroom Halloween party.

Kids love to make crafts. Try making some kind of insect out of paper and stickers at your next party. Then tape it onto a stick and watch the kids have fun with it. You won’t be disappointed! Check these out HERE. Buccaneer Bingo Sight Words Game. This was a fun center. Check out the Pirate Party for more ideas.

Foods – It’s fun to then plan some simple foods for the kids to eat. Most kids like Pizza or hot dogs or mac and cheese if you are serving lunch or dinner. If adults are there you can add some chicken salad sandwiches on rolls. I have used these for family celebrations, wedding receptions even. Everybody loves a little chicken salad sandwich with almond slices and grapes.
Pretty white platters to put your fruits and veggies on work well. Try a few that are 2 tiered for a nice spread.
Add cookies or donuts, 2 kinds of chips, fresh fruits cut up or on skewers or veggies and dip. Then you can have the birthday cake at the very end of the party after the presents have been opened. Use linens or fabric to give a pop to your refreshment tables. This black and white fabric I’ve used for lots of parties. Polka dot is also a real popular generic linen choice.

I’ve used these cookie jars with inserted scrapbook paper to match my colors or theme for years. They look equally cute with Cat in the Hat papers or Pirate or Superhero themed papers filled with cookies or treats. Then add a sticker to the jar. Just be sure to also add a half sheet of waxed paper around the interior of the jar between the scrapbook paper and cookies so you don’t get the oily marks on your scrapbook papers. Top with colorful ribbon to match your theme colors. These I did for my son’s wedding reception a few years back. But I’ve done them also for other parties and baby showers.

Little kids always love cupcakes at parties. You could do cupcakes instead of a cake.

Halloween Party ghoulish cupcakes and skeleton brownies. Kids will eat em up! Check out how I made them HERE. Granny Smith and Honeycrisp Apples with Homemade Caramel Dipping Sauce – great for a party anytime! And so easy and healthy too!

I usually serve 2 liter bottles of pop with papers printed out to tape over them with a themed message. Then I have paper cups, plates in the party colors. I use banners, balloons, tissue paper puff balls, and party store cardboard cut outs all over the place for decor.

My granddaughter’s mom made these Cute little Palm Trees with beanie baby monkeys attached (also the take home gift) Here are the cute little rainforest monkeys that the kids got to take home for a party favor.

My daughter in law made these cute little palm trees with brown paper rolls for the trunk and green paper cut out leaves with little stuffed monkeys attached (the party favor) to them. They were really sweet decorations. The napkins are usually pretty and special and make the themed table looks really cute. I spend extra to get real cute napkins. Then my plates and cups are usually solid color to save a few bucks.
Refreshment table for a summer party can be just bars and cakes and fresh fruits. Super easy! Notice the orange and hot pink linens and flowers make the decor look bright and fresh.
Goodie Bags – I always like to send home a goodie bag with some little candies and toys inside. I usually fill it with a balloon, some clay or bubbles, a whistle, lollypops, pixie stix and individual candies like taffy, Jolly Ranchers or chocolate kisses. Then I tie them with a ribbon. If it is for my class I usually add a pencil and an eraser of some sort. Sometimes I find theme toys to go with the holiday if it is a holiday type party.

Delicious fresh summer fruits on a skewer really can’t be beat for any summer celebration too. They looks so much fancier on wooden skewers too, and kids can help make them!

The key to the goody bag is DO NOT GIVE THEM OUT TILL THEY ARE LITERALLY WALKING OUT OF THE DOOR.

I have had to learn the hard way that kids will open and eat, or worse, spill the contents of the bag and then want another one. Somebody always loses theirs somewhere in your house if you give them out early, and then you run out because they come and take another one. Even in my classroom the goody bag goes in the backpack and they are not allowed to open it till they get home or in their parent’s car. It is nuts when you have a kid who not only opens his and eats up all the stuff but gets chocolate mess all over himself and everything he has touched, and then leaves a mess under his desk, on his desk and all the candy wrappers everywhere for you to clean up! Word to the wise.

Pirate Party “Loot” bags were a big hit with my kindergarteners this year at our end of year Pirate Party.

Have a boatload of fun at your next kids party all you whipper snappers. Argh Mateys!

Dr. Seuss Decorating

This year at our school the theme decided by the principal is “OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!” by Dr. Seuss. I decided I would designate one of the walls of my classroom to the theme.

Dr. Seuss Decorating with Fun Bags, Paper Cut Outs, and some first day Pencils and Erasers! Won’t the kids LOVE em?

I went over to Target the other day with my daughter and grandkiddos and what do you know? There is a big bunch of fun stuff over in the dollar section that has lots of Dr. Seuss and lots of Disney products for teachers.

I found a boatload of stuff. Lookee What I got!!

I loved these cardboard Dr. Seuss Decorating Posters. They’re about 9 x 13 size.

I’m going to use these 4 clocks to give the time when school starts and ends, and when recess and lunch are. This will help the kids to learn to tell time, and will reduce the number of times they ask me when lunch is. That is one of the hardest things about 1st grade. They are not used to staying the whole day.

Foam Clocks to use for Telling the Time of Day (School Start time, Recess, Lunch, Dismiss) for my Dr. Seuss Decorating.

I also got these cute erasers. I don’t know what I will do with them yet. Maybe I’ll give them out in a little baggie with candy and a pencil on Back to School night. They also had Dr. Seuss Pencils. Target also had banners and cute clip art items with Dr. Seuss characters on them. I will use this on my bulletin board that says “Oh the Places You’ll Go!”.

Dr. Seuss Pencils and Erasers from the Target dollar bins.

I don’t know what I’ll do with these cute Cat in the Hat decorations, but I couldn’t resist them.

The cute Cat in the Hats are a border. But I thought I could cut them apart and add the kids pictures underneath with a blue wig like they are Thing 1 and 2. That would be super cute to use to vote in my Graph a Week chart. The light up balls were only $3.00 but they probably won’t work lit up for long. I’ll just string them across some area of the classroom that needs a little “POP” of color!

My Weekly Graph has a different question each week and as the kids walk in on Monday they vote for what they like. Then later at math time we talk about it using math terms such as “greater than, less, more, equal, least greatest” and kids get used to that vocabulary.

Last year for the Graph a Week chart we used these little people icons. This year I’ll use the Dr. Seuss hats and add the kids’ pictures in blue wigs. That will be cute.

I got a few games too. I’ll use these for centers. The back of the ABC flashcards I’ll use another way. They have cute pictures (in the Dr. Seuss tradition) and words under the pictures. I’ll put these in a pocket chart at the writing center. I’ve wanted to have a cute word bank of some sort over there but didn’t want to use up all my color printer ink. This is a very cheap way to go!

Telling Time Dr. Seuss Games and numbers and letters too. A darling aqua blue pocket chart will be great for schedule or center activities listings. Most of these were $1.00! What a steal!

Here are a few Dr. Seuss freebies that I will use to decorate my classroom wall this year. HERE is a cute Triangle Dr. Seuss banner to print out with red and blue designs on all the triangle shaped banner pieces. It is really cute from from the Carefree Classroom. HERE is a hall pass and some other cute things from Julia Rother. Thanks guys! Now I just need to get into my classroom and start decorating!

Butterfly Activities Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Books we made for Butterfly Week.

LANGUAGE ARTS
We made Hungry Caterpillar books in my classroom. They turned out so cute. The kids were pretty good about drawing items for the caterpillar to eat around the holes I had punched in their little books.

Butterfly Activities and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Fun.

We read the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar first. Then we talked about all the things we could have OUR OWN caterpillar eat. We made a big list on the white board of our brainstorm. Then I drew a little picture next to each of the words so the kids could read, write it, and copy the easy picture to color.

Then we went to work on our books. They had already been previously made up by ME the day before. Then I punched out all the holes. You could also have a mom helper do it but it is kind of complicated. I’ve just found it easier to do it myself.

After we drew and colored what the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate, we glued one on each page. They were so tiny and cute!

Luckily Bennett had the stuffed animal of the caterpillar from Kohls. I had left mine at home. So he brought it in so we could use it as a visual aid. Fun! A cute Dot to Dot Butterfly art is HERE at Activity Village.

Stuffed Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet.

Then we did a bunch of Caterpillar and Butterfly activities. Here are a few.
A cute VOCABULARY list with cute visuals you can print out is HERE. It was a great center activity for the pocket chart and some HAND pointers too. A roll and cover game was HERE at TPT.

Last year at recess I passed out these “find a bug” jars and kids LOVED them. They fought over doing this activity for 2 weeks. In never got old. This is science at its best. Little scientists observing nature.

A cute SONG to sing about Caterpillars is here.

POETRY or MUSIC (Sing to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider)

A little, green caterpillar crawling on a leaf,

Spun a little chrysalis, and fell fast asleep.

While she was sleeping, She dreamed that she could fly.

And later when she woke up, she was a BUTTERFLY!

MATH:

Graphing- What is your favorite bug? Butterflies? Honeybees? Grasshoppers?Dragonfly? Ladybugs? These were our top 5 we voted on. Guess which one was the winner?

We do a weekly graph where I ask the kids a question and they vote from 5 choices.

Here is our “What is Your Favorite Insect” Vote. It looks like dragonflies won.

We also did an estimation jar with plastic Dollar Store insects inside. That is always a fun math activity.

SCIENCE

Do a life cycle of a butterfly. A link for a black line page of the 4 stages of a Butterfly can be found Here at Digital Pencil.org. They have lots of games, a podcast and another video of a butterfly pupa stage. You can also buy the butterfly larva at Carolina Biological Supply for about $15.00. The link is Here for Carolina Biological Supply. I usually don’t send away for them until Springtime. A cute wheel life cycle is HERE on TPT. You can get the butterfly garden below from EAI Education for $15 bucks.

Butterfly Garden is a great science Activity and it usually comes with a certificate for free Butterfly Larva. This is how I ordered mine the first time. I’ve put butterfly, praying mantis and ladybug larva in here before. Once the praying mantis got out through a hold overnight and they were all over the kids’ desks in the morning. It was funny. Buy it HERE at Insect Lore for about $15 bucks.

P.E. “Bug Garden”. Have students sit in chairs in a big circle. This game is like FRUIT BASKET. One student is in the middle without a chair. I’m usually the first one as I have to teach the game. Go around the circle of chairs and give students names;1 ladybug, 2 dragonfly, 3 butterfly, 4 honeybee. Then start over going around till all are named.

Then tell the caller to call out an insect name. (bees) All the bees must jump up and fly to another chair. Everyone else stays sitting and just watches. It is FUN to watch, believe me! Nobody who was a bee can stay in the same chair. The caller grabs one of the chairs and sits during the commotion. The one who is leftover with no chair is the new caller. Then one fun part of the game is if the caller says “Fly Away Bugs!” then all the bugs get up and trade places. Last one to find a seat is the new caller! I do this for a Halloween party, a Valentine or Christmas party too. Just name the kids theme names for the holiday (skeleton, ghost, bat, witch for Halloween, and for Christmas; stars, candy canes, ornaments, trees, etc.

We had a great time doing Butterfly Week!

Brown Bear Brown Bear Teddy Bear Picnic

Here the kids are getting all ready to run over to the bounce houses on field day on the last day of school. There was also a giant parachute we played with.

It is the last week of school and the end of my year teaching kindergarten. I have loved it. It is like trying to keep a lid on popping popcorn!! Yup. I wasn’t that successful at keeping the lid on, but we had a lot of fun every day!

This is the little Patriotic Bear I painted and put on a wreath on my front door. I added a little flag and some stars and flowers too.

I love the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. It is perfect for Kindergarten. They know most of their color words and can read the simple text from the story since it is so repetitive.

These were the 3 funny 6th grade teachers who dressed up all in the 50s for the dance festival the last day of school. haha. They looks so cute. Our class danced to Ball in the Jack. We rocked it!

So for the Teddy Bear Picnic that I usually have at the end of the year we will do some Brown Bear Activities. Here are a few I came up with that are lots of fun.

We went into the gym and watched a Disney movie and ate popcorn after field day. FUN!

1. ART – MAKE A BEAR WITH MOVEABLE ARMS AND LEGS or just a Bear HAT- We are only using the head this year to make a hat. It is HERE. The arms and legs if you want a jointed bear are on this page HERE at Virtual Vine along with a gazillion other great resources. Look under the quilt for 3 printable body parts. It turns out cute but takes a while for the kids to color. Or make a Bear Hat. Use a Bear coloring page and just use the head and a brown strip of construction paper to go around heads.

We made this Brown Bear only we didn’t make it into a hat. We made Bear puppets on a stick instead. But we’ve made these in past years. HERE is a cute art bear from Girl Scouts of USA.

2. SHARED READING – Read the Book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Make a necklace after coloring all the brown bear characters. Add pony beads in between each character on yarn for a cool and colorful Brown Bear Necklace. Perfect art activity for kindergarten. Free printable is HERE. Or you could make a fruit look necklace and add the characters in between several fruit loops. That’s fun too.

Read the book together with the Youtube of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? It is a cute one.

3. PHONICS – Matching Center “Rhyme Time” Activity after reading the book Bear Says Thanks. HERE. There is also a writing activity and a cut and paste freebie. A cute mini books for $3.00 is HERE at TPT. A free version is HERE at TPT. Thanks gals!

There are always activities you can do with addition and subtraction using counter bears and a number line.

4. MATH – Fun Brown Bear “counting the characters” cut and paste math activity great for kindergarten. It is a freebie on TPT HERE.

Holding our Teddy Bear Puppets and puzzles.

5. PICTURES – Take a picture with your Teddy Bear. I also found a picture
frame to color and put a picture inside with the bear hats and their teddy bears they brought for the read-a-thon. It is cute. Check it out HERE.

You can always do a Bear art project using lots of brads and brown paper. We didn’t have a lot of time so we made bear heads on a stick (puppets) instead. They were cute.

This is my little patriotic bear and Uncle Sam on my entryway table. I’ve got all my red, white and blue stuff out for July. I got the little stars and stripes (the red and white one is to the right but you can’t see it in this pic) buckets from the Dollar Tree.

6. Read-a-Thon with Bear books. After doing all of our BEAR activities we will do a read-a-thon with our Teddy Bears we’ve brought from home. Then we will have a picnic with hot dogs, root beer floats, chips and gummy bears of course. Then we will go outside and draw bears with sidewalk chalk. It should be a very fun Teddy Bear Picnic this year.

Here’s the hubs and I at Yellowstone visiting one of the fun gift shops in Jackson Hole. We usually go to our cabin at Bear Lake the weekend I’m off of school to unwind. And we usually take a short tip up there or some town close by.

7. Writing our own Brown Bear Brown Bear innovations. “I see a red fish (or Blue Bird) looking at me”. OR….Each child can write about things that are brown. “Brown can be a bear, a hamburger, a chocolate bar and a coconut.” Brainstorm on the board a list of brown things for them to choose from. This is an especially good idea for ESL kids who need language experiences.

Field Day and Teddy Bear Picnic on the last day of school.

We came back in the classroom after field day and ate hot dogs, chips, cookies and drinks. It was fun to have a picnic with our Teddy Bears! Teddy Bear Picnics are the bomb! The last day of school was sure lots of fun. Have a great summer everybody!

15 Pirate Party Activities

a PIRATE card art project we made turned out cute.

I always do a Pirate Party at the end of the year. It is a fun day we look forward to all year. I’ve done different things each year but these are 15 of the most fun things I’ve come up with in 21 years of teaching. Have kids all put their name on a brown bag and add a handle to it. Put some torn red/white fabric and tie a strip on the handle. Add a pirate sticker or skull crossbones printout to the bag. Then have the kids go to 6 stations of activities you choose and bring their bag with them for all the prizes and loot they will get! All stations should take about 8-10 minutes.

CRAFT TYPE ACTIVITIES
1. Whole Group Activity – Make a Pirate Hat (Do altogether on tables – directions and printable tutorial diagram are HERE at Birthday in a Box.
The skull and crossbones printables are all over the internet. HERE is a cute one, and it is free!

Pirate Hats – I used black butcher paper folded like a sailor hat. Kids added their pirate names to the back and skull and crossbones I copied and they glued them to the front.

2. Station 2 – Pirate Name (What is your pirate name?) Print out this freebie on a big poster on a table. Kids write their funny pirate names on the back of their hats with white crayon or chalk. Hats made with black butcher paper. Add a skull and crossbones free printout cutout to each hat. HERE is a freebie Find Your Pirate Name Game.

We’ve made black, red and white bracelets with pony beads in some of my past pirate parties.

3. Station 3 – Get some Pirate Bling (Make Fruit Loop necklaces with gold coins or use pony beads in black, red and white) glue gun a chenille stem loop to the gold coins before the party. Or make a mustache on a stick!

I used black poster board for the eye patches and we taped a piece of black yarn on top and tied them in a bow around our heads. It was easy. The mustache was construction paper taped on a skewer stick.

4. Station 4 – Get a Tatoo and an Eye Patch. (Face Paint a scar or put tatoos on arms) Put an eye patch on some string and tie it around forehead. HERE is a free printable. Get pirate tatoos at a party store or Oriental Trading. Some eye patches are HERE as well as a beard you can put on a stick.

5. Station 5 – Make a Pirate Hook Hand. Directions on how to do it using red plastic cups and tin foil are HERE. Decorate it with these doo dads HERE.

CARNIVAL ACTIVE TYPE CENTERS

6. Station 6 – Walk The Plank Obstacle Course. 2 games here. 1st is put a plank of wood between two crates and kids walk with one eye closed and hands behind back. 2nd obstacle is hop with a tennis ball (canon ball) between your knees and drop it in a bucket. Everybody gets a chance to do 1. Then watch others. Then do 2nd obstacle, then watch others.

For our Pirate Party all the kids dressed in black and white.

Have a fun photo station where kids have pirate hand hooks, eye patches, fun hats and take pics!

7. Station 7 and share Pirate Jokes Check out some at Enchanted Learning. and do a ring toss on water bottles. Use cut out black and red plastic plates (just cut the outside of the plate to make ring toss rings). Read a joke, throw a ring.
example: What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?
(A carrot!)

Another joke: What did the pirate say when his wooden leg got stuck in the freezer? Shiver me timbers! Check out this page for joke ideas HERE at Enchanted Learning. We did a pirate maze and jokes and pirate math on the back when the kids first arrived at school. It was a good ice breaker activity.

Some of the girls really dressed up for the Pirate Party! Super Cute!

8. Station 8. Pictures & Throw a sponge at the pirate. Take turns getting behind the cut out pirate face. Get an assortment of spongy balls and cut out some square sponges from the dollar store. Take turns seeing if you can hit the face. Take pictures at the end of each child in the pirate cut out. If it is an outside summer party on a hot day get the sponges wet.

They loved their pirate patches! They all wore them home on the bus ride.

9. Station 9. Pin the Patch on the Pirate Printable is HERE. I’ve done this with 1st and 2nd graders and it is lots of fun. I just blew up a pirate coloring page and backed it with red and white striped paper and bordered it with black. HERE is a link to eye patches you can print up or just cut them out of black construction paper and have kids tape them on. Cover their eyes with red bandanas and sing “Yo Ho, Yo Ho a Pirates Life for ME!” as you spin them around.

LEARNING CENTERS (EDUCATIONAL)

10. Station 10 – Pirate Bingo Game (using sight words- good for 1st grade or end of kinder) free printable games HERE. Or HERE is another cute Bingo game.

Here was my Pirate Bingo we called Buccaneer Bingo. Get free copies from Kinder Gater Gals at TPT HERE.

11. Station 11. Math Cardgame – Pirate War – get in groups of two partners. Both of you put down a card. Add up the numbers. The one with the highest sum gets both cards. Person with the most cards at the end of 10 minutes is the winner and gets a jewel to put in their sack. Check out THESE free printables. Or THESE that I used. Kids can cut them out and take them home in envelopes.

12. Station 12 – Pirate Go Fish – Use these 16 colorful pirate pictures and copy twice for each partnership. 2 kids cut out and then play go fish or concentration with the cards. The free printables I found are HERE. Also an ABC Maze Printable is HERE. or HERE is an ABC order Pirate game.

REFRESHMENT TABLE IDEAS

Here was my classroom Pirate Party Refreshment Table. We had 2 kinds of drinks too. I don’t know why that duct tape is there, we didn’t eat any duct tape. lol.

13. Station 13 –Refreshments

1. Pixie Stix (pixie dust) (add little black triangular pirate flags to the top).
2. Pirate Canon Balls (cheese balls or malt balls)

I just got cheese balls (generic) from the market and made up a cute sign.

3. Fish and Chips (orange goldfish crackers and potato or tortilla chips)

Next to this bowl is a bowl of cheese fish crackers. Get it? Fish and “chips”. lol.

Here are the goldfish that went with the “Fish and Chips” Signs. I just typed them out and pasted them on red paper then on black to border it nicely. Then I added stickers or pirate pictures I got off the internet.

4. cupcakes with pirate Cupcake Toppers HERE, or HERE.
5. Fruit Roll Ups wrapped with a pirate treasure map coloring page
6. Pirate Popcorn – use jello and make red popcorn balls, or just get some caramel corn or regular popcorn and call it “Pirate Popcorn”.

We had double stuffed Oreos and of course Chips Ahoy cookies.

7. Chips Ahoy or Pirate Os (oreo cookies).

Here are some “skeleton” brownies I made at Halloween that would also be great for a Pirate Party. The heads are candy melt discs, the bodies are yogurt covered pretzels. I used icing for arms and legs and faces.

8. Skeleton Brownies.

14. Take Home Gift Ideas
1. Goodie Bags with pirate items inside. I had jewels from the dollar store, rings, pirate bookmarks, chocolate coins, lollypops, and cute little chocolate pirates wrapped in gold foil with skulls and crossbones.

Aren’t these the CUTEST Chocolate Pirates wrapped in foil? A parent bought a whole class set of them. They went into my goodie bag. Another parent bought each of the kids 2 gold chocolate coins. Those went in too. In years past the kids have gotten pirate black balloons and pirate erasers.

2. ABC maze HERE and wrap it around a fruit roll up.
3. Lollypops or Tootsie Rolls taped to a small Pirate wordsearch HERE.
4. Pirate Playdough (make your own in purple or black) I have a recipe for Koolaid Playdough HERE on my blog. Put them in mini ziplock baggies.

Land Lubbers Licorice. haha.

5. Pirate Superballs and Balloons. I bought mine from Oriental Trading HERE. They are tiny but fun to play with. Wrap them together in a bag.
6. Landlubber Licorice – This is cute in a jar. The above one was for a different party but you could put pirate skull and crossbones on the jars. Make an assortment of “Pirate Loot” and put them in bags like this tied with black yarn.

I also had pirate superballs I had ordered from Oriental Trading a few years ago. They have lasted through several years of classroom parties.

PARTY ROTATIONS

I try to have 6 really good PARTY ROTATIONS (centers) and kids spend 10 minutes at each one. They go around in groups of 4 so the games can be played multiple times (like Bingo). I try to do 2 crafty type activities, 2 active play activities, and 2 learning games (educational).

For a home party you could fill cookie jars with candy or gumballs and let the kids do their own goodie bags.

If I do a bingo I try to have the words along with the pictures so they are reading. The first activity is making the hat and bag. They take the bag around with them. At each center is a fun token or giveaway (pixie stix, rings, bubbles, bead necklace etc.) so they have an assortment of take home prizes. Some are just prizes if they win.

I’ve used this party bucket for prizes, ice and cans of sodas and all sorts of things. Just add vinyl lettering to a red bucket from the craft store and then for each party add a decal, sticker or printable coloring page to the top on a theme for the party. Skull and crossbones work perfectly. I do this with small buckets to hold silverware, napkins, and craft supplies at the rotations too.

The whole party should last about 75 minutes. Have fun Mateys! Argggg! And have fun Walking the Plank!

Pirate Party Fun!

Insect Activities

We made some cute insect models of ants out of egg cartons a few years back when I taught 2nd grade. Then the kids wrote informational texts on insects and where they are found, what they eat and what they look like. I thought it might be fun to post it again since we are doing insects this week.

rts.We used insects after reading our Reading Streets Play on Ants. I had each student get an insect book out of the library, we wrote down facts in cooperative groups. Then we added those facts to our own “sloppy copies”. Everybody shared facts. Then I edited the reports.

Then we rewrote them on this nice insect stationery. I had 2 styles to choose from.

Then we illustrated them. I loved this dragonfly and all the beautiful background too…

Fabulous art here! I think Jack did this one. I gave them simple clip art insects to use as models.

Ant and Caterpillar poems in the pocket chart center….The kids had 5 poems to choose from.

There’s a ladybug poem and a cricket and one other.

We used egg cartons cut into 3 sections for the 3 body parts of the insects. They chose their own pip cleaners, wiggly eyes and made a tongue and antennaes. Some are very colorful!

We made our ant models out of egg cartons cut into 3 body parts and painted.

We painted the egg cartons red or brown or black then when they were dried we added the pipe cleaners and wigglyeyes. We sang the song THE ANTS GO MARCHING 1 BY 1
HURRAH too. Kididdles has the words
and click for the music too.

We made “ants” after reading our Reading Streets Literature play on the Ants and several other cute stories about the hard life of an ant. .

After we wrote our reports I had the kids draw pictures of their insects and color them.

Insect cards with facts on the back I got from the Dollar Store at the science center..

Insect Books at the Science Center

I like this one…its got character!

Gotta love a ladybug, right?

Dragonflies were very popular reports…..

Ladybug art….so beautiful! I have some really talented kiddos. This is really one of my favorite art products from one of the kids this year. It should be framed. Period.

Last year we made grasshopper life cycles. They were too easy. This year we did Insect reports.
The GRASSHOPPER Life Cycle wheel printable can be found at Lapbook Lessons. for a fun extension. A cute cricket craft is HERE at Jennwa’s blog.

Some did praying mantises and others did crickets or grasshoppers.

A cute Insect Bingo game I copied as well as fun vocab cards and other interesting life cycle wheels (ALL FREE!) is HERE at Bogglesworld.

Did you know there were 300,000 kinds of beetles in the world? Yeah, me neither!

Henry had a walkingstick and a buddy on his back!

I think we only had a few ladybugs in the bunch!

This insect was so nicely done, I was quite impressed by Kiera’s art talent!

We did a few worksheets too; a crossword puzzle and a cut and paste about insect vocabulary. The link for some great worksheets and crosswords is at Boggle Worlds.

Then we wrote reports on insects. They got into cooperative groups and had individual school library books on their insect of choice. Everybody shared facts with everybody else. They are very proud of their research reports.

I found some cute stationery in a Scholastic book Check it out HERE.

Insect reports – the kids did whatever insect they chose.

Here is a close up of the ants and the reports

We are all proud of our little ant creations….

Here are some of the Cooperative Group’s posters….everybody added facts to the posters of Ants, Grasshoppers,, Dragonflies and Fireflies, Beetles and Ladybugs, and Honeybees/Wasps/Yellowjackets.

Insect posters….we kept adding to all 5 of them the whole unit long….

Science Center microscope with metamorphosis of a caterpillar slides….

Insects hanging out at the Science Center of our classroom….

My SCIENCE CENTER has insect books, write and wipe off activities and these insects with viewers. It also includes the microscope with slides of insects morphing. It is a popular center.

Great job everybody. I loved teaching you all about INSECTS!

Father’s Day Pirate Cards from Handprints

We made some cute little Pirate Handprint Cards for Father’s Day on Friday.

Father’s Day Pirate Cards from Handprints.

We painted the palm of the kids’ hands peach colored (white with a little orange mixed in) and just the top of the palm by the wrist red, and all the 4 fingers black. We didn’t paint the thumb. Then we pressed them on folded 9 x 11 white cardstock. Inside we glued in our handwritten messages on cute stationery I found for free at Teacher Pay Teacher from Whitney Parlin HERE. The 2nd download has the Father’s Day Papers. I made 8 copies of each style and the kids chose their favorite to write on.

Sorry I forgot to take pics, but they wrote “Happy Father’s Day. I love you. You are good at….. and we brainstormed about 10 things dads are good at. The kids added a few that matched their dads. They were really cute. One little boy said his dad was good at shooting guns. Another boy said his dad is a good cook. Super cute!

My class with their Father’s Day Cards. These pirate handprints turned out cute and only took about 30 minutes to do the entire class.

Then we glued on black hats and I copied off some cute pirate printouts we glued on the hats. Then I gave each child a wiggly eye and an eye patch to glue on. They made the face with black crayon and added a black line for the eyepatch.

Father’s Day Pirate Cards from Handprints.

Then I typed up Dad You’re GRRRRREAT! and they glued those down at the bottom of the card. I was thinking of putting You’re a Grrrrrreat Matey, Dad! But it sounded kind of weird. Too Punn-y maybe?

If you can think of a fun one-liner for next year’s card, write it in the comments.
The link for the free PIRATE printable skull and crossbones is HERE at Lee Hansen.com. Thanks LEE! And HERE is a fun math match up Pirate game I downloaded as a fast finisher.

Arg! Mateys, Have a Happy Father’s Day!