Easiest, Cutest Student Made Ornaments!

You read that right... you have stumbled upon the easiest and CUTEST student made ornaments!

These are so simple.  No cutting, no painting, no days to dry, no gobs of money to spend... in fact, you only need five items to make these and I guarantee that you have FOUR of them in your classroom right now.

You need:

*gluesticks
*popsicle sticks
*permanent markers
*pipe cleaners

Those are the four things you already have.

The only things you need to buy are holiday cupcake wrappers.

Seriously.

Students take 3-4 cupcake wrappers.  My kiddos used three big ones and one little one.

Flatten them.

Rub glue on the back of each one, fold in half, rub glue on the half, and fold over again.

Then, arrange on top of each other like a tree.

Teacher adds a stick on the back with hot glue, students write their name and the year, punch a hole in the top, and twist on a pipe cleaner!  I got mine at the Dollar Tree!

I loved seeing my students' faces light up when they saw the finished product... the best part... it only took 30 minutes to do this entire project with my class of 26 second graders!

Of course, if you want a more ambitious project, you can check out what we'll be doing this coming week.  We're making another ornament using pre-cut wood slices.  I got these from Amazon for around $18.00 for 30 of them.   (Click either pic to check them out on Amazon- affiliate link!)

We'll be starting these in the upcoming week.  Here's the sample I made... I just painted three of my fingers white, pressed on the wood slice, and decorated with Sharpies when the paint was dry!  I know my kiddos will LOVE making these for their families and they'll have a pair of ornaments to take home for the holidays!

That's it!  Two cute, easy ornaments that are perfect for my kiddos and yours this holiday!

Tons of Pics Tuesday... {Come See!}

It's been too long, bloggy friends!  I've been busy watching "Breaking Bad" obsessively and just finished the series... I LOVED it!!!!!  Any other BB fans out there?  I'm looking for another good series to start now.  I've watched "Orange is the New Black" and LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

So... I'm a little late to the party, but here are some pics of what we made our parents for Christmas.

This one is a pin my colleague found on Pinterest... not sure who to credit here, but THANKS to whoever came up with this CUTE CUTE project first!

We also made these ornaments out of cupcake wrappers... I LOVE how they turned out!!!  Super cheap and easy... just fold the cupcake wrapper in half and glue, then fold it in half again and glue.  Stack, glue, hot glue a popsicle stick on the back, hole punch, add pipe cleaner hanger!

So cute!!!

We also made cinnamon/applesauce ornaments, a reindeer thumbprint ornament, and a handprint tile... but I forgot to take pics of those!

One of my BFFs and I went to the last Lions home game in mid-December.  We had SO much fun!  We even made Lions cookies and took them to pass out to fans in Detroit!  You can totally tell which ones she made... she's a great artist!

I love this girl... we had so much fun!  I lost my voice from screaming too much!

Last... it's time for my FAVORITE writing unit... personal narratives!!!!!  We started this week and already have an anchor chart, additions to our Writer's Notebooks, and have read some amazing mentor texts by Patricia Polacco and Donald Crews!

I can't WAIT to dig deeper into this unit and see what my writers come up with!

Check out the Writer's Notebook pack for more info!

It's the new year!  I hope 2015's amazing for you all!

Christmas Projects- Come Look and Pin For Next Year!

Ok... this is what we did this week...

On Monday we made gingerbread dough, cut it out, and baked it.

Then school got cancelled for two days because so many kids and teachers were sick.

So, today, we painted them in the morning.

Here are a few...

I am in *love* with this little girlie's!

 

We also made these on Monday.  I was inspired by something I saw in the "Easy Holiday Craft Guide" that Marygrove College posted last week.  So, we made these on ceramic tiles that I bought at Home Depot for less than $0.40 each!  SCORE!  And it really was quick and easy!  Each kid wrote "You light up my life!" and signed their name and dated their tile.  Then they squiggled out a strand of lights and used their fingers to press on lights.  We let them dry and I Modge Podged them.

Of course, I realized I didn't take a picture after we frantically wrapped these today... so this is mine that I made as a test!

 

And we made reindeer ornaments again this year.  I took this picture before this little guy put the nose on his reindeer!  Oops!  He did get noses on by the end of the day, if you're worried about it!

It was a fun and crafty week!  We also squeezed in Christmas Around the World, even though we missed so much school!  My kiddos enjoyed filling in their scrapbooks and learning about the different countries.

And, of course, I read them this book. 

Can you see how loved and worn it is?  And how my mom taped in every single page because I wore it out reading it so much?  I must have been 7 or so when I got it for Christmas... it's all about me, my sister (Michelle), and our dog Max as we travel around the world, collecting letters so that Santa can teach us the true meaning of Christmas.  Which is PEACE!

Anywho, I read it to my class every year... they're always impressed at how I barely look at the text to read it to them... someone always notices!

10 Quick and Easy Holiday Crafts

My friends at Marygrove College are at it again!

They've just put together a GREAT guide that has 10 quick and easy holiday crafts that your kiddos can make next week!

And, I'm honored that they featured my gingerbread ornament activity!

Click the picture to download the book and get some great craft ideas for your classroom- I LOVE LOVE LOVE the string of lights craft!

A Quick Pic and Something Else...

Here's a picture of the "gingerbread ornaments" my kiddos made yesterday (if you saw my blog post about the smells in my room). We baked them yesterday and today we used acrylic paint to paint them. I am SO excited about how pretty they turned out!

And, I was featured in my local newspaper today... in full-color on the front page! I got interviewed last week due in large part to the webinar I did for Marygrove and a proud dad who called the paper to tell them I was doing it! (Gotta love dads!)

I am still so humbled to think that people actually care what I have to think and say about things! You can check out the article here. (And thanks, Patty, for the nice comment on my blog post from yesterday! I'm glad you saw the article!)

Christmas party tomorrow, PJ day & hot chocolate bar on Thursday... then done until 2012!

Blog at ya later! :)

The Smells from Room 10

Did that get your attention? Generally, my room just smells like a room full of 6, 7, and 8-year olds... which *fortunately* doesn't really smell like much. But, we've been having some tell-tale-holiday-smells for the past few days:

Last week we made our parent Christmas gifts- the reindeer ornaments and tissue-paper-covered-jar-luminaries which I have neglected to take a picture of.

So, for two days, my room smelled like aerosol sealant... And the hallway. And probably everyone else's rooms at my end of the building.

But... today... another smell came wafting out of my room. Something much more pleasant... gingerbread!

We read gingerbread books, compared and contrasted them, wrote about gingerbread characters, and made gingerbread play dough!

During the making of the play dough, I realized we should use the cookie cutters to each make and bake an ornament... so then that happened and the smells of warm cinnamon, ginger, and cloves wafted through the room... drawing many a curious nose into my classroom! :)

Tomorrow we're going to use acrylic paints to paint our ornaments which I will then seal with the aerosol... thus reverting back to the original smell of crafts and memories!

Check out the pictures from our work today!

Each group worked together to mix their dough... here's the recipe:
2 c. flour
1 c. salt
2 T. vegetable oil
1 c. water
3 t. each ground cloves, ginger, and cinnamon

Mix, mix, mix and then separate for each kid. After we played and cut out shapes, we bagged it to take home!

I brought in all of my Christmas cookie cutters and we made lots of shapes!

Then each kid chose one of their shapes and we baked them in my neighbor-teacher's little oven at 250 degrees for about 30 minutes. Don't forget to poke a hole in the top of each with a straw before baking!

Then we read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and went to the computer lab where we made these on ABCYa.com!

Tomorrow's agenda is more gingerbread stuff including making and eating cookies, lots of writing, painting our ornaments from today, spraying them with smelly stuff when the kids leave, and then I'll be prepping for our Christmas party on Wednesday!

Have a great week!

What We Did Today... And a Plea for Ideas to Keep My Students SANE!

...it was such a Tuesday today!

We did our best, but the threat of losing our snow, getting tons of rain, still having another week and a half before break, and Christmas around the corner make Room 10 a craaaaazy place to be right now!

However, we did do part 1 of our parent gifts today... a totally Pinterest inspired project:


This was super easy! Each kid used acrylic paint to do several thumb prints on their ornament. Before they arrived today, I used a white paint pen to write their name and "2011" on the bottom of each. I also attached the ribbon. Then, this afternoon, they drew the antlers, eyes, and smiles on with a black Sharpie and we used red glitter acrylic paint for the noses. They used Q-tips to put those on. Then I sprayed them with Mod Podge sealer when they were dry! They turned out super cute!

PS- that is a laundry drying rack that I bought at Wal-Mart for about $7.00. Each kid has a clothespin with their "number" on it and we hang out art to dry from the rack! Today we hung our ornaments after we painted them... worked PERFECTLY!

AND... I found this website a few weeks ago on someone's blog... so I signed up and we did the dinosaur adventure today. It was a welcome way to get our energy out, learn a little about dinosaurs, and get some exercise too. I even did it with my kiddos... and admit it was a little bit of a workout! You should check it out. It's free and fun!

How are you all keeping your students sane...? Or are they all crazy right now? When are you done for the year? We go until the 22nd, which seems terrible BUT I'm really looking forward to not starting back until mid-January! Having so much time after Christmas and New Years to relax and enjoy will be wonderful!'

Thanks, Finally in First, for hosting a linky party about student Christmas gifts!