Columbus Day

To celebrate Columbus Day, we made Columbus' three ships - the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

I gave each student a long piece of light blue construction paper and had them draw waves with a blue crayon and clouds with a white crayon.

I painted their hands (one hand three separate times) with brown paint. Once dry, we took small squares of paper and glued them on to make sails.

The students also wrote the names of the ships so they could remember when they told their parents.

Make your own Jack-o-Lanterns

I know I haven't blogged in awhile, so here is the first of two for tonight. With Halloween approaching, I did one of my all-time favorite projects with the kids...make your own Jack-o-lanterns. As you can tell from the pictures, they are all different, but fits each student's personality to a tee!

I give each child a piece of orange construction paper and a half sheet of black construction paper. I tell them to draw a circle for their pumpkin on the orange paper, and a nose and mouth on the black paper. I usually draw examples of different noses and mouths on the board to give them some ideas.

I also let them choose the size of googly eyes they want. I have everything ranging from extra small to extra large. My favorite jack-o-lanterns are always the ones with two different sized eyes!

After students have cut out their pumpkin, nose, and mouth, I give them another black piece of construction paper to glue it on to.

This year, I decided to have them put on a stem and a leaf. I gave them a small sheet of brown paper for the stem, and drew different types on the board as examples of what they could draw. I also gave them a folded piece of green paper and told them to draw a semi-circle on the crease (this makes the leaf).

I loved how these turned out and am anxious to do the same thing with snowmen for Christmas! :)

Subway Art...Take 1

So here is my 1st attempt at subway art. I love Halloween; so I decided that this would be the best subject matter - now that it is October!

All I did was grab an 11 x 14 canvas, Mod Podge, and a whole bunch of different words. All of my fonts came from either Lettering Delights or dafont.com. Lettering Delights costs money, but you can usually get fonts on sale. Dafont.com on the other hand is all free!

After I printed out my words, I cut them out and used Mod Podge to glue them on to the canvas. I let it dry, and then put a coat of Mod Podge over the entire canvas. That's all I did, and I must say…I LOVE it!!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Kindergarten is getting in the fall spirit. Today, we made scarecrows. I had originally saw a scarecrow like this in an Oriental Trading catalog. However, they cost $8 to make 12. Mine cost $3 for 24. (I bought cream colored paper plates at Hobby Lobby). You could easily get away with making these for free though!

Below are pictures to give you an idea of how we made our scarecrows. 



First, we cut out two pink circles for the cheeks, an orange triangle for the nose, a brown hat, a brown "rim" for the hat, and 15 strips of yellow construction paper cut with scrapbooking scissors. The yellow strips are the most time consuming. (315 strips is enough for 21 students.)

 

Next, glue the cheeks and nose onto the plate. The students used a marker to draw the smile and eyes. I had to remind the students to draw the eyes close to the nose because we would be attaching the hat and hair later. Set the plate aside, and glue the rim to the hat. 

 

This is probably the hardest step. I gave each child 15 pieces of hair. I told them to glue 2 on top of the hat, 3 on the bottom, and 5 on each side. MAKE SURE TO REMIND THEM TO GLUE THESE TO THE BACK OF THE HAT! (I didn't think of that right away.) 

 

I decided to use tacky glue to glue the hat to the plate. That way, they would stay together longer in the hallway. My teacher's aide came up with the idea to use fake flowers instead of paper ones. Luckily, she had enough lying around for the whole class! We hot glued those on. We also added a little bow for an extra touch! 

It only took about 45 minutes total to complete this project. One of the easier ones. Trust me…there have been worse!!

Coloring Pages Starring...YOU!

Recently, I came across a photo editing site called Picnik. It is completely free to use. Basically, you upload the photo you want, and choose different filters to edit the picture.

There is one editing option called Pencil Sketch. Using this option, you can create your own coloring pages. Wouldn't this be great for the classroom?!?

To demonstrate how this works, I'll use this picture.

Upload your photo to picnik.com. Under the "Edit" tab, there is an icon that says, "Effects." There you will find Pencil Sketch. You may need to scroll down until you see it.



Once you've chosen Pencil Sketch, set the Radius to 5. Depending on how light or dark you want the picture to be, choose a strength. I set mine to 37%.

After this, click on the "Save & Share" tab. Here you can save your picture as a .jpeg file. My finished product looks like this.

Now that you've saved the picture, open Microsoft Word and insert your picture into a blank file. Resize the picture so it fits most of the page and - voila! - instant coloring page!

I think I will be taking my students' pictures come Monday.

Classroom Theme

I must say...I L-O-V-E LOVE Trend products. With that said, I cannot get enough of the monkeys, coconuts, and lizards! For the past few years, the theme in Kindergarten has been centered around those monkeys. This year is no exception.

What I wanted to show you was the one item that sets my room apart (in my opinion) from others who have this theme - the palm tree! At IKEA, they sell these palm leaf bed canopies. That was where this whole idea got started. I bought three. Knowing that my local carpet store threw away the cardboard carpet rolls, I called to see if I could get one. They were more than happy to get rid of them!

Next, I needed a base for my palm tree. After a quick trip to Menards for some plywood and a PVC pipe, I was set! My dad was kind enough to drill the PVC pipe onto the plywood. He also put the carpet roll on top of the pipe and then secured the two together. I bought some burlap to cover the base and asked the janitor at my school for a roll of brown paper towel.

Here's where the fun comes! You will need: a drill, the roll of brown paper towel, and a staple gun. Wrap the beginning of the paper towel around the drill bit, then start drilling! This twists the paper towel into what looks like a rope. It is definitely a 2 person job - one drilling and the other unrolling the paper towel! Once you have your rope going, start wrapping it around the carpet roll and stapling with the staple gun.

I also got some brown fabric and stuffing to make coconuts. I'd  say it turned out very well!

In honor of "Talk Like a Pirate Day"

In honor of "Talk Like a Pirate Day" on September 19th, my class decided to make pirates. The original idea came from here. We tweaked it to work for us.

We only had white paper plates, so first we had to color them. I had traced the top of the paper plate onto red construction paper to make the bandana. I also drew the outline of a knot on red construction paper to glue onto the bandana. The students had to draw white polka dots to decorate it.

I gave them each a patch and glued on a wiggly eye. They drew the faces with markers. I then punched a hole in the paper plate and added a construction paper earring.

These were too cute to keep in the room for ourselves, so we hung them in the hallway for the rest of the school to enjoy. Believe me...they did! All down the hall, you could hear pirate talk! Arrgh!

Everyone is creative.

Everyone is creative. I truly believe this. This blog will showcase things that I have made. Trust me. I go for cheap! Pretty much everything I make is under $10. Many things will be art projects I have done with my Kindergarten class, but there are many things for the home as well.

I am warning you now…I get most of my ideas from Pinterest. I absolutely love that website!! When I make something from there, know that I will credit where it came from. No plagiarizing here, folks!

I hope you enjoy this blog and feel inspired to try some of these things out on your own. It's fun to be creative. I promise!