April Activities

Today I thought I would share random things going on in our classroom in April!

 

First up we had Easter!

 

I actually came down with strep the Wednesday before Easter.  So I missed our Easter party that Thursday :(  Luckily we had made these really cute Easter crafts earlier that week.

 

This was actually a combination of two ideas I saw on Pinterest.  You can check the original pins out here and here.  I found both of these pins about 2 years ago and thought they would be super cute together.

 

And I think the result is pretty cute!

 

The bunny was made from painting each child's ring finger, index finger, and palm.  This year I added a little glitter, but you can't really see it in the picture.  And then used a sharpie to add the eyes, nose, mouth, and whiskers.

 

The picture was taken in front of a table cloth I bought from Walmart years ago.  I just hung it up on clips in the hallway and had each student stand in front of it.  I used a fat popsicle stick, three white pipe cleaners, and a big pink pom for the nose and whiskers.

This year I've made it a point to have my students make some kind of stained glass window art to decorate our windows.  The kites are actually from March, but we had two weeks of spring break in March and I got sick with strep last week.  So even though its almost the middle of April, they are still up.  We are going to make umbrellas next week.  The umbrellas are all cut out, we just have to make them and hang them up.

I have two bulletin boards in the hallway.  The big one is switched out each month. This month it has my grouchy ladybugs I blogged about a few days ago. 

 

 

The small one is where I showcase my student of the week. 

 

 

Well I was pretty consistent with sending home my student of the week pages this week and actually finished all my students before spring break.

 

So I decided to print out some pictures from our school year that have just been sitting on my computer and showcase them on the bulletin board.

 

I included an individual picture of each student, along with groups shots from parties, field trips, literacy night, 50's day, 100th day of school, etc.

 

This bulletin board is a huge hit with my students and parents.  Every time we walk down the hallway, my kids get so distracted.  It's a little better now, but when I first put the pictures up, I felt like I had to drag them away from it so we wouldn't be late for lunch every day.

I just printed out clipart of letters and cameras to make the bulletin board pieces.  It was so easy!

 

At the end of the year, I'll send the pictures home with my students.

 

This is my favorite picture from the board!

 

 

This is my awesome kindergarten team on book character dress-up day!!

 

It may be April, but my brain is already in End of the Year overload. 

 

I have a list of everything that needs to be done before the end of the year.  So many of these things can be completed now, I just usually wait until the end of the year.  So I figured, why not do some of those things now, so that I won't be as stressed at the end of the year.  So for the past 2 weeks, my goal has been to check 3 things off my end of year list each week.  This week I actually checked off five things, and I had bus duty.  Woo Hoo!

 

First up were pictures for the front cover of our End of Year Memory books.  I found this idea from a super cute pin on Pinterest.  See the original here. 

 

I actually found this pin last summer and kept it in the back of my brain for this exact purpose.  I even went ahead and bought cheap sunglasses from the party section in Walmart last summer.

 

Well, the stars aligned this week, and we had perfect weather, all of my students were present, and one of our kindergarten teachers has a super crafty and artistic student teacher!

 

So during recess Miss Maggie worked her magic with the sidewalk chalk.

 

Then I took a picture of each student individually, wearing the sunglasses of their choice, I did have to stand on a chair to get the picture right though. 

 

But they turned out super cute!! 

Miss Maggie did such a great job that I thought "hmm" we could get a cute group picture in front of the chalk writing too!

 

So we did!



I ended up using this group picture on our class autograph page that goes on the back cover of our Year End Books.

 

I will show examples of my Year End books in a few weeks.  They are almost all put together!  But I'm still trying to decide exactly how I want to format the front cover with their individual pictures.

 

This is basically what my front covers have looked like for the past 8 years.

 



But I'm thinking it might be time to change things up.

 

When I make up my mind, I promise I'll show it!

 

So stay tuned!