3D Hot Air Balloons (And an Elephant in the Bathtub)

My classroom recently went through a big change. Almost all of my kids were 5-years-old, so we opened up a new classroom for them and I got a new crew of 4-year-olds. I had to do some sort of send-off display, and I had to think it up quickly. I decided on hot air balloons.

I've seen many 3D balloons online and I've loved them. I knew I wanted to display them on the wall in the hallway, so I kept the back flat and just made the front 3D. Each child decorated three balloon shapes cut from cardstock.

They decorated them with dot markers. Looking back, I wish I had made them all from white paper so the colorful designs would've shown up better. But at the time I was thinking I wanted a very bright display. To make the balloons, I folded the three pieces in half and glued two halves together and another two halves together. (It's hard to describe, but you'll be able to figure it out when you see the picture. It's very easy to do.) I also drew a little basket on the paper and the kids decorated that with markers. You can kind of see them in the bottom right corner in the picture below.

I originally took pictures of the kids to put in the baskets, but when they got printed they didn't look so great. They all looked a little ghostly. And most of the kids had their hands up in the air and cutting around all those fingers was a pain! So I changed my mind, drew an outline of a person and had the kids color it to look like them.

Then I cut them out and put them in the baskets. I used yarn to attach the balloon to the basket.

I displayed them in the hall with the title, Up Up and Away. (Although I was tempted to use the Dr. Seuss title Oh, the Places You'll Go.)

I also printed out the poem from Rook No. 17.

In the whole wide world

With everyone in it,

You're one of a kind

And the sky is the limit!

And to welcome the new kids into my classroom, I made a display on my door. I copied a bulletin board I found years and years and years ago. An elephant in the bathtub, with the title Off to a Clean Start! The names of the kids are on the bubbles.

I drew it by hand while looking at this picture from Adventures of Room 129. But when I found that picture, I don't think it was attached to a blog. It was several years before that post was even written. I had printed it out and hung on to it all these years. I've always loved it and was glad to have a reason to finally use it!

Peeking Bunnies and More

Here are some more of our Easter and Spring crafts that we worked on this week. The first is the peeking bunny.

I've seen this craft many places online, but I wanted each child's to be a little more unique so instead of gluing pre-cut pieces, I had the kids paint their own bunny head and ears by dipping pom poms into paint.

Then they dipped a smaller pom pom into pink paint for the inside of the ears and the nose.

When it was dry, they drew in whiskers, eyes and a mouth. I also hot-glued a jelly bean to the nose. Then they painted their fingers green and made prints for the grass.

So simple, and each one is different. I hung them up with our Easter wreaths.

We also made egg chicks. I did this a few years ago, but this time I had the kids do more of the work themselves. I provided the egg-shaped body and the kids cut out everything else. They could do whatever they wanted to turn their egg into a chick.

Love how unique they are! Our last art project was fork tulips, which I first saw at Kids Play Box. I added a little bit of white paint to different colors and the kids pressed a plastic fork into the paint. They had to roll it back and forth a bit in the paint and again when they made their prints.

Most kids made all their tulips first, then added the stems with a brush, but some made a few tulips, added stems, made more tulips, added more stems, etc... They turned out so beautiful!

This will definitely be a project I do every year from now on. They add so much color to my room!

We also did an alphabet matching activity using plastic eggs. I wrote uppercase letters on the top halves and lowercase letters on the bottom halves. The kids had to match the letters together.

I made it a little easier on them by having the top and bottom be the same color.

Once all 26 eggs were put back together, they got a jelly bean! And the neat part was I was able to use a permanent marker to make the letters, but after the activity I just scribbled over them with a dry erase marker and wiped it clean with a tissue! Now I can easily use the eggs for something else.

Happy Easter!

Bunny Card and Easter Wreath

Our Easter crafts are in full swing! Here are the first two:

For the card, I painted the palm and four fingers of each child's hand. Then I separated the first two fingers from the last two fingers (Star Trek style) and made a print on the front of the card.

I got the idea to make a bunny this way from Fun Handprint Art. I also painted a little bit of pink on the ears. This helped cover up any gaps between the fingers.

And I wrote, "Some bunny loves you..." When it was dry the kids wrote, "ME!" on the inside of the card, decorated it and signed their name.

Then they glued neon wiggle eyes and a button nose to their bunny print. They also drew in whiskers and a mouth.

They turned out so cute! I will send them home later this week so the kids can give them to their parents.

We also made Easter/Spring wreaths. I was just planning on cutting the entire middle out of a paper plate, but then I thought it might be cute to have a little bunny peeking out. So I drew a simple bunny shape (with a marshmallow Peep in mind) and cut around that. We used small paper plates. First the kids decorated the bunny with markers, then they scrunched up tissue paper squares and glued them around the plate.

When dry, I added a little bow at the bottom with some ribbon that was donated to our classroom. It was the perfect touch!

I hope to have more Spring and Easter crafts for you later in the week!

Edible Rainbows

I saw this cute Fruit Loop rainbow craft on How Wee Learn where they threaded cereal on a spaghetti noodle and stuck marshmallows on the ends. I thought it would be neat to use a pipe cleaner so you can bend it into a rainbow shape!

The kids started by putting a marshmallow on one end of the pipe cleaner, then they put the cereal on in any pattern they wanted.

Then I helped them stick another marshmallow on at the end. If there was pipe cleaner left sticking out, I trimmed it off. Some kids chose to group the colors together and some chose to make several rainbow patterns. Others chose to do their own thing!

We found that five of each color or five sets of rainbows was the perfect fit. It gave us enough room left at the end to add the marshmallow. Most of them stood up by themselves. I ended up wrapping them in plastic wrap to keep them clean. I told the kids they could eat their rainbow at home, but I did warn them the marshmallows might be a little fuzzy!

We also made a handprint rainbow as a class to try to get a leprechaun to leave some gold. And I quickly thought up a poem to go with it.

 Dear Leprechaun,
We have been told
That you leave your gold
At the end of a beautiful rainbow.
With our hands, we have made
One that will never fade.
So please leave your pot o' gold below!

While we were outside on the playground, a couple of my wonderful co-workers put a bowl of Rolos at the end of the rainbow and left a little shamrock trail. The kids were SO excited to see the gold when we came back inside!

The bowl actually had more in it, but I forgot to get a picture before the kids took their pieces and we shared with all the teachers. Oops!