Mother's Day Tea Party

Yes, this pretty much sums up my life at the moment.

 

Most of my friends have a least two kids by now, some have more, and I'm like "wanna see a picture of my kitty?"

 

I may not be a mom yet, but I do have an awesome mom!

 

And in case you haven't read my blog before, we like to run races at Disney together.

 



 

You can read more about our Run Disney adventures here.

 

Now on to celebrating Mother's Day in my classroom.

 

Usually we have a tea party when we study the letter T in September, and Muffins with Mom in May for Mother's Day.  This year we decided to hold off on our tea party and do a Mother's Day tea party instead.

 

I am totally in love with this fascinator I bought from Amazon.  I will definitely be wearing this every year for our tea party.

 

Check out the one I bought here.

Our tea party was at 2pm, so I set everything up while the kids were in centers.

I set out each child's "All About Mom" page and "Recipe for a Great Mom" apron.  Click here to see how we made them.

 

Last year I did not set them out and I totally forgot to give them to the moms.  I had to send them home the next Monday.

 

I wanted to make sure that I didn't forget about them this year.

I loved seeing my kiddos and their mommas all dressed up for our tea party!

I also had some very dapper dudes.

They were dressed so nicely that we had a talk before lunch about being careful with their food.  Usually when I pick them up I can tell exactly what they had for lunch because its all over their shirts and faces.  But not today!  The cafeterias ladies must have known it was a special occasion because they served cheeseburgers and mini corndogs instead of sloppy joes or spaghetti.

 

We also had a talk before recess about not playing in the dirt or mulch.

First we read "The Night Before Mother's Day" - check it out here.

 

Then we ate cookies and drank sweet tea and lemonade.

I made my kids take their moms through the line and help them get their food first.

Then I called my students to get food.

 

Last we watched our kindergarten dvd.

 

This is the one that has pictures from all of our kindergarten classes.

 

We sell it for $10 but it won't go home until our awards day.  So we wanted to give the moms a sneak peak at it.

 

They loved it!

While we were watching the slideshow, I had my students get into pairs so I could take pictures.

They were adorable!

 

We had a great Mother's Day tea party.

 

I am so thankful to the moms and nanas that took the time to get dressed up and come hang out with their child.

Totally unrelated to Mother's Day, we made our final stained glass window art for the year.

 

I thought tulips were perfect for May and made sure that they were put up before the tea party.

 

One of my goals this year was to have my kids make a stained glass window art for each month of school.  And we did!  The kids loved making them, and I love the color they brought to our classroom.  Plus you can see them from the road as you drive past our school.

 

 With Mother's Day here, I can't help but think that the end of school is right around the corner, like 2 weeks and a few extra school days away.

 

Doesn't feel real that exactly 3 weeks from today, I will be on summer break!

 

Woo hoo!!

Mother's Day Craft

I know Mother's Day isn't for another week, but I wanted to share this cute craft we made for our moms!

 

Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen?

 

I loved our little handprint flowers we made last year.  (Click here to check them out)  But I have a little sibling of a student I had last year.  So I wanted to change things up.

 

I bought this "Recipe for a Great Mom" craftivity set from Bilingual Scrapbook on TpT.  Click here to check it out.  And one really cool thing about this set and all of Bilingual Scrapbook's sets, is that there is an English version and a Spanish version.  How cool is that?!

First I grabbed some fun scrapbook paper I already had on hand. 

 

 

I love buying these scrapbook paper packs from Hobby Lobby when they are 50% off.  So worth it!

First, I printed the patterns on 85% because I realized that I could fit 2 of the skirt patterns on 1 scrapbook page if I did so.  Otherwise I would have had to use 1 whole page per skirt pattern.  I hate keeping up with scraps, so I didn't want to do that.

 

I picked out my 10 favorite paper patterns and had our kindergarten assistant cut out 20 choices for skirts.  Then the kids were called up one at a time to choose one for their mom.

 

Next, my assistant cut the top part of the apron out of the pretty pearlescent paper to coordinate.

 

I love that paper!!! 

It's not glittery, I do have glittery paper but this isn't it.

I love how it shimmers and it's sooo pretty!

 

So in case you couldn't follow all of the arrows on the above picture.  The pattern the kids chose was used to make the skirt and neck strap (or as my kids refer to it, the handle).  The coordinating pearlescent paper was then used to make the top of the apron and the lace trim at the bottom.

 

The pockets and the white band around the middle were printed on white cardstock.

 

I just taped everything together because I knew I was going to run them through the school laminator.

Usually I let my kids put their own crafts together.  But I thought it might be wise to do this one myself.

Then I had the kids write out their recipe for a great mom!

We have been working really hard on our writing this year and my kids are doing so well.

 

But I was in a bit of a time crunch with my assistant, I only get her 2 mornings a week, and so I needed to get all of these aprons finished before she had to go to the next teacher.  So we were each working with a student while my university practicum teacher was teaching.  My practicum student Miss Kelly is awesome by the way!

And we made a little cheat sheet to help them.

I know my kids can write well and they get plenty of practice, so I wasn't too hard on myself for providing them with the correct spellings.

And they turned out way cute!!

 

I think having support with spelling really helped my kids concentrate on their handwriting.  Because that is something that a lot of mine struggle with.

The finished products are ready to go!

 

Now I just have to store them for a few weeks and not forget where I stored them :)

There are also some additional activities included with this set.

 

I like this one the best, but there were several choices.

I worked on this activity with the kids by myself during center time, so I wasn't rushed, and let my kids sound out their own words.

I wrote on the back of each students paper what they said, just in case my moms aren't as familiar with reading invented spelling as I am.

 

Her name is Jar "Jessica"

Her favorite food is dorntoz "doritos"

She is the best because I love hr "her"

Here name is Donu "Donna"

Her favorite food is salib "salad"

She is the best because she is nis "nice"

 

Her name is mom (this cracks me up)

Her favorite food is brwnes "brownies" - I thought that was pretty good invented spelling!

She is the best because she cks binr "cooks dinner"

 

I hope my moms love these as much as I do when they come for our Mother's Day Tea Party in 2 weeks.

 

At our tea party:

• We are going to dress up (full on tea party attire with hats and gloves is a must)
• Eat Danish wedding cookies and drink sweet tea
• Read the story "The Night Before Mother's Day"
• Debut our Kindergarten 2015 Slideshow (I just finished our grade level slideshow yesterday)
• And give our mothers our apron crafts and writing papers

I'll post pictures of our Mother's Day tea party the weekend after.  I am super excited!

 

I'm also really excited to show our moms and the kids a sneak peak of our kindergarten slideshow!

 

We sell these for $10 a piece and use the money to help us with kindergarten expenses (water day, thanksgiving feast, Christmas party, etc)  But they wont go home until after our Music/Awards Program on May 19.

 

If you've always wanted to make a class slideshow, but didn't know how, check out my six part blog series I posted last May to help.  Each post includes step-by-step instructions.  Click here to check out the first part.

 

I can't believe May and the end of school are just around the corner.

 

In the next couple of weeks we are going to work on some report card and end-of-year testing, luckily our testing wont be standardized, and some fun year end activities!

 

So stay tuned!!

 



Mother's Day Craft

I feel like every year I am on the quest to find the perfect Mother's Day craft for my kiddos to make for their moms.  This year was no different.  I wanted it to be cute, original, and something they would be pleased with.

So this year while browsing Pinterest I came across a cute handprint flower that definitely had some potential.  I just needed to put my own spin on things.

I know what you're thinking...Mother's Day isn't for a few weeks.  But I am not a procrastinator and cannot stand rushing around doing things last minute.

I picked up this really handy scrapbook paper pack that has all different colors and patterns.  I knew that I could use it for this craft and continue to use for other fun things.  The best part is that it was 50% off.  Woo Hoo! 

 Then I chose some fun mommy colors and cut them to look like little flower pots.

I had also picked up some glittery cardstock on my trip to Hobby Lobby, as well as a flower punch-out (not sure what those things are called).  They were also 50% off! That flower punch-out came in very handy when I had to make over 100 flowers!







So sparkly and pretty!

One of our fabulous kindergarten assistants painted all my kids' hands green for the stems of the flowers.  Of course I chose my sparkly green paint!!  It's all about the sparkle people!

She then let my kids chose which color and pattern pot they wanted for their mommy and glued them all down for me.

Here she is...isn't she awesome!






Then I got to work helping my kids write why they love their mommy's.





Here are some more examples.  Aren't they too sweet?

I then cut out their little message, glued it onto the flower pot, and Mrs. A laminated them for me.

I let each student choose 5 flowers for me to hot glue onto their stems. (I was worried that the texture of the glitter cardstock would not laminate well.  So I opted to hot glue them on top after the paper was laminated, this also gave the flower a neat texture)

Here is the finished product!  I think we are going to have some very happy moms at our Muffins with Mom party in a few weeks!