Handprint Flower Garden

I have a very special display to share with you this evening. When I first had the idea it was just going to be another bulletin board or door display, but it's turned into so much more. I started out by having the kids in my class make handprint flowers on a huge sheet of white paper.

Yes, I only had three kids that day. I have an extremely small class right now. So I decided to get the handprints of the 3-year-olds across the hall from me. I also painted in some grass at the bottom.

Then I thought I might as well get the handprints of the kids from other classes, too. So the 2-year-olds added theirs, and then the 5-year-olds.

In the picture above, some of the stems hadn't been painted in yet. All the kids made their own stems except for the 2-year-olds, which were painted by one of my 4-year-olds or me. And the kids had to get a little creative with their stems because they had to avoid painting over someone's handprint! I wish I could have gotten prints from the infants and toddlers, but it would have been too tricky. If I had thought of it before I started, I would've done their prints first and made the white paper much bigger. But I still love how it turned out. I titled the display, "Love Grows Here" and hung it at the end of a long hallway.

I wrote each child's name next to their handprint using a marker of the same color so it kind of blended in.

I even got my daughter's handprint. She moved up to the 2-year-old room about a month ago and hers is the smallest flower. It's so cute!

Now, the reason why this display is extra special is because our center is going to be changing ownership in a couple weeks. The current owner cried when she saw this in the hallway. It reminds everyone that we are still a family, no matter what. Even if we all end up going our separate ways. Our center is filled with love.

Egg Carton Forest Creatures

I saw these adorable animal finger puppets made from egg cartons in the April issue of Family Fun. I knew immediately I wanted to make these with my class. They turned out so cute!

We used the egg cups at the ends of each carton because they made the best faces. I let the kids pick which animal they wanted to make and what colors they wanted their animal to be. First they painted the whole thing one color.

If another color was needed, we waited for the first color to dry completely, then painted the second color. I outlined where the paint needed to go, then the kids filled it in. I cut ears from construction paper that matched the paint they used. We attached them to the back of the rim using mini glue dots.

We put some Elmer's glue into each egg cup and dropped in a wiggle eye, and glued a pom pom on the nose. The kids made a deer,

a raccoon,

a skunk,

and a fox.

I wanted to make an owl, so first I painted it,

then added a paper beak.

I used big wiggle eyes and added feather tufts.

To use it as a puppet, the kids could stick their index finger into the nose part and hold onto it with their thumb and middle finger.

SO CUTE! It works best with animals that have eyes in front instead of on the side of the face. When I first saw these puppets in the magazine, I had planned on making bunnies this way for Easter, but after looking at an egg carton I knew it wouldn't work. So I did it as part of my Earth Day theme, by upcycling egg cartons!

Rockin' Robins

Tweet, tweet, tweet...

We studied birds last week and the kids noticed we have a bunch of robins that hang around our playground. So although robins weren't on my lesson plan originally, I had to add them in. And of course I couldn't resist doing a robin craft. I painted the kids' feet brown and made prints. When they were dry, I cut them out leaving a big "belly" on the inside of the foot. The kids painted glue on this belly and applied crumpled-up orange tissue paper squares to it.

Then they added yellow beaks and brown feet. I decided to make these birds rock stars, so I drew in sunglasses.

I printed out some guitars and microphones for the kids to color and hung them up with the birds. I also made some musical notes.

I had planned on putting the guitars on the birds to make it look like they were playing, but it wasn't working so I just hung them up next to the birds. The microphones were a nice touch, though.

And you can't help but get the song stuck in your head every time you see my door.

Tweet, tweedle-lee-dee!

Fun Fact: Robins are known for their running and stopping behavior.

Pretty Peacocks

I've done peacock crafts in the past (here and here) and loved them, but I wanted to try something different this year. If you remember my turkey craft from tissue boxes, I said I was saving the blue boxes for peacocks. I loved the design.

For this craft I cut really long rounded feathers, which means I didn't get as many feathers from each box as I had hoped. So I also cut some feathers from construction paper. First the kids glued the feathers onto a semi-circle.

Then they dipped their thumb in glue and made prints on the feathers. I received some teal glitter from CraftProjectIdeas.com and sprinkled it on the glue prints. It was the perfect finishing touch.

The body of the peacock was made the same as the other crafts.

Blue cocktail toothpicks were added to the head for the crest and the body was glued onto the feathers.

The kids didn't fill out their peacocks the way I did, so I probably would have had enough tissue box feathers, but I like the mixture anyway.

Fun Fact: The train of a peacock can be up to six feet long!

Angry Tornadoes

We had a state-wide tornado drill today so I thought it would be a good idea to share a tornado craft my class made last week.

Way back in February when I was looking for ideas for a Valentine's Day display, I found the perfect one at Life in First Grade. I ended up using her idea for my display, but I also liked the tornado craft her kids did. I changed it up a bit when my kids made them for our weather unit. On their paper I squirted a little bit of black paint and a little bit of white paint and they mixed it together with their fingers.

Once it became a gray color, they continued swirling it around, but also dragged the paint down.

If needed, they'd go back up and drag some more paint down, all the while swirling their fingers.

They also made two arms that extended out from the sides. When it was dry, they glued on wiggle eyes and black fists (heart-shaped pieces cut from black paper). Then they used a Sharpie to draw in angry eyebrows and a mouth.

Some looked mean, some looked funny,

but they all looked cute!

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!