Teacher Appreciation Gift- Class Thank You Flower

This past year I have been one of the room moms for JDaniel's class. Sometime during the winter one of the moms came to me and said she had a great time for the teacher appreciation gift. She had found it on Pinterest. While I was searching for the idea she had found, I came across a class thank you flower shared on Hillside Elementary Library The Hillside Elementary Library blog suggested flowers be given to each teacher in the school by her students. It would be hung on the the teacher's door. Each petal of the flower had a picture or a message written on it by one of the students in her class. I love this teacher appreciation gift of a class thank you flower and pinned it so I would not forget it.

Last week I sent home two flower petals with each student in JDaniel's preschool class. I asked each student's mom to help them decorate and place a message one petal for their teacher and her teaching assistant.  

Yesterday I collected all the petals and put together the class thank you flowers. The teacher at Hillside Elementary had taped the petals of the flower in place. I wanted the teachers to be able to spread the petals out and fold them back in.

Each petal received a hole from a hole punch at one end. I then cut out two pink felt circles and cut small slits  in their centers. Next I placed on pink felt circle on the the brad. After the circle was in place, I added the decorate petals from the class. Finally I added the other pink circle.

I did the same thing for both teacher's thank you flowers.

Why did I do it this way?

Felt Circles

Many of the students decorated or had messages that went the full length of the petal. By using felt instead of cardboard the teachers could lift up the circle to read the full message or take in the full picture.

Folding Flowers
I chose to  have the flowers fold so the teachers would be able to store them easily. I wasn't sure how they would store a large flower.
Two Circles
Two felt circles were used to help the petals stay on the brad. I was worried over time the petals in the back might slip of the brad.

The teachers received their teacher appreciation gifts last night. Both loved their class thank you flowers.  I watched as they read over some of the messages. They were really touched by them.

How do you remember your child's teacher or teachers at the end of the year?

Preschool Graduation Bento Lunch

   

I honestly can't believe today is my son's preschool graduation day. His time in preschool has flown by. Seriously! It seems like only yesterday I registered him for preschool. A special day like today totally deserves a preschool graduation lunch.

Tonight he will be wearing a cap and gown along with his Sunday best. JDaniel has been quietly singing the songs for tonight is his room. I am not supposed to hear them until the event. He was given a special instructions to keep them as a surprise. I don't think they want all the mom's sobbing while they listen to them at home All the tears I have will have to stored up for tonight.

What was in his lunch?

JDaniel is still requesting cheese sandwiches for lunch. This cheese sandwich features a cap that I cut freehand. It took me a couple of attempts to get it right. I ended up filling up on cheese scraps while working on this project.

Meat is not one of his favorite lunch items lately. I rolled a single slice of turkey into a some what scroll like creation and slid it onto a graduation cap ring.

Watermelon and strawberries are not only favorite fruits of JDaniel's they add a burst of of color to the meal. This meal definitely needed some color.  I found the cutest cat pick at a local 5 and 10 for him to use to pick up the fruit . He was the closest thing I could find to a preschooler graduating.

I will be posting some of his graduation pictures tonight on Instagram and Facebook if you what to see them.

How have you celebrate your chlidren's graduations?

Patriotic Foods for Kids

The summer is filled with patriotic holidays.  Memorial Day next week. Flag Day is on June 14th. Then there is the 4th of July in the middle of the summer. Finally there is Labor Day which is celebrate at summers end. I searched through the blog's archives to find patriotic food for kids that I have served.  These meals, snacks and desserts may have originally been served on Memorial Day or 4th of July, but would be wonderful for any of the patriotic holidays I listed above.

Twisted Stripe Wrapped Hot Dog Meal

Pinwheel 4th of July Snack

Patriotic Ice Cream Sundae

Split Hot with Salads Meal

Fruit Flavored Watermelon Stars

Child Build Stars and Stripe Meal

Labor Day Star Themed Meal

Memorial Day Picnic Foods Meal

I hope you have found a patriotic food the kids in your life would love among the collection above. There are several more in the blog's archives. These are the ones I though you might like the best.

If you have a post or idea that you think would make a great patriotic food for kids, feel free to leave a link to it below. I am always looking for food ideas to add to my Food Creations board  on Pinterest.

{Read.Explore.Learn} Reading Comprehension: Illustrating a Story

This weeks JDaniel and I read the book Amelia Bedelia Helps Out.  JDaniel loves the humorous way Amelia messes things up by not understanding that words have multiple meanings. I love her too. She turns 50 this year. (That means that people have been chuckling at her missteps for over half a century. ) It is her misunderstanding that I decided to focus on in this reading comprehension activity called illustrating a story.

JDaniel and I have read this story many many times in the past. Since we have been talking about gardening for the past few week, this book so needed to read again. A few of her mistakes are related to gardening. She weeds the garden by adding weeds. She stakes the bean by wrapping steaks around them. Amelia uses a duster to dust the potato bugs with bug powder.

She also does a number of other odd things thinking she is doing the right thing. You just have to love her and giggle at what she does that is part of the fun of reading her stories.

Illustrate a Story

Picture walking through a story means you flip through a story and look at the clues the pictures give as to what is happening in the story. Illustrate a story is the opposite of picture walking. During illustrate a story, a child flips through a book and looks for key concepts and pictures in a story they have already heard or read. They then draw them on a larger roll of paper in the order they happened in the story.

We looked through the story and picked four of the events that we wanted to draw. Both JDaniel and I worked on the drawings and we talked about what was happening in that part of the story.

Drawing Weeds

I drew the weeds and JDaniel added details to them. We talked about how they needed to be very big weeds just like the ones Amelia Bedelia had added to the garden.

Drawing Bean Plants and Steaks

It was so much fun to draw the bean plants and add pink steaks onto them. We don't eat steaks often at our house. JDaniel kept having to refer to the book to see what they looked like.

Dusting Potato Bugs

I tried drawing a potato bug like the one in the book and JDaniel told me it was not exciting. I didn't know that they were supposed to be exciting. He grabbed a gray crayon after drawing his own leaf and make one that was more exciting then mine.

Giving The Chickens Scraps

JDaniel seemed to have lost interest in drawing when we got to giving the chicken scraps of cloth. I started the chicken and he finished it. The feathers and feet are all his. I just love them.

When we finished, I had him walk me through the events of the story we had selected. I was really expecting to just talk about what had happened. JDaniel grabbed the book and looked through it to find each of the events. I love that he had us go through the book as we discussed it.

While his not yet reading, he has learned show that he comprehends what is being read to him. I think we will be illustrating a story again soon. As he does learn to read and write better, I will have him add keywords from the text to the pictures.

How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three others.

Disclaimer: This post contains an affiliate link.

{Learning Activities} 19 Ways To Use A Zigzag Learning Maze

Sometimes you sit down and plan an activity you will be doing with your children. You brainstorm what you will do during the activity along with alternative ways you can use it. There are other times you just grab a roll of tape and see what you can make with it.  That is just what happened with this zigzag learning maze. When I sat on the floor with roll of tape I had no idea what the maze would look like and no idea of how we would use it.

Boy, have we found wonderful ways to use this zigzag learning maze! Actually we found 19 ways to use this zigzag learning maze.

Here are some ways we have used the walkway we created:

Movement Activities

We started by simply walking up and down the center of the pathway by placing one foot in front of the other. JDaniel doesn’t usually walk this so it took at little practice.

Walking the pathway backwards was even more of a challenge.  When you are looking, back your feet can sometimes step off the path without meaning too.

Trying to walk on the tape down one side of the pathway and back on the other side took a little bit of concentration.

Jumping from one side of the path to the other was easy in areas where the pathway was narrow, but was harder in the wide areas.

Challenging a partner to move down the path in a certain way was a lot of fun. Skipping, hopping, galloping, sliding, and tiptoeing down the path were each offered up as challenges.

Timing which of us could move down the path the fastest and the slowest was also fun.  Walking in slow motion inspires one to move the rest of your body in slow motion too.  That can bring on a lot of giggles and stifled laughs.

Throwing a beanbag into a particular corner selected by an opponent can be quite challenging.

Pretend Play

The edge of the pathway can be lined with block shaped buildings or cardboard boxes from the recycling bin.

Toy cars can race through the maze pushed from behind by people ready to get the checkered flag.

Balls can be rolled through the pathway like pinballs zinging and pinging through a maze.

The pathway can become a waterway for bathtub boats. The corners and dead ends can be inlets off a mighty river.

Learning Activities

Numbers can put in the corners by a child in ascending order.

Once number cards have been put in place, a child could walk to each number and clap that number of times.

Sight words can be placed along the path. In order to pick up the card the word on the card would  need to be read.

Colored pom poms could be spread along the path to be picked up with chopsticks. Before the pom pom was picked up, the child would have to tell you the color of the pom pom or the answer to a learning question.

Two players could take turns rolling a die to see how many steps they could take down the path.

Books could be used to fill up all the space on the pathway and they would then be counted.

The pathway could be the home to a giant concentration game. The cards could be spread out along the path. Children could walk up and down the path looking for matches.

Washcloths could be used to fill in the path. They could then be counted to find the area of the path.

What are some other ways we could learning using the zigzag pathway?





This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock's blog.