A Merry Minion Christmas

I previously made a post about crocheting Despicable Me minion hats for a friend's little boys.  Here is a picture of the oh so handsome little men in their new hats!

I also made minion hats for two lovely little girls.  I was running out of yellow yarn and decided that pink would be perfect for these little ladies!

I think I will be busy making more minion hats as several adult friends have requested their own.

The Centers Room

I have just posted a slideshow of my centers room on the "My Classroom" page.  Click to check it out! 

Whaaaaaat?!?

I have been crocheting like crazy this week!  I originally saw these Despicable Me minion hats on Pinterest.  I absolutely love this movie as do my best friend's little boys!  I thought this would be such a great Christmas present for them!  I got my pattern from Elizabeth Mohsin.  It cost me about $4.00. The pattern comes with six different sizing options from newborn to adult.  The body of the hat would work with any hat pattern but I was interested to see how she did the eyes.  In retrospect, I could probably have come up with my own pattern but Christmas is almost here and this saved me some time. 

I tried to make each one a little different...if they have the same eyes then they have different smiles and hair.  I can't wait to see these on their heads!  Only one more week! 

You Can't Catch Me!

It was a gingerbread week in preschool!  Every day we read a different version of the Gingerbread Man.  The preschoolers used our story graph to compare the characters from each story.  We also compared the story endings.  I photocopied the story covers to make our graph.  

We read the following stories: 

• The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth
• The Gingerbread Man by Jack Hartmann (audio story)
• The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst
• The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires
• The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka

 (I originally got this graph idea from Vanessa at Pre-K Pages.)

According to our "Which story was your favorite?" graph, The Gingerbread Girl was the favorite of the week. (The boys votes were split between the other stories while the girls all rallied together for the same story.)

Hand Print Wreaths

This week in the Art Center, the preschoolers made hand print wreaths.  We helped them turn their paper to make the circular shape.  They sprinkled glitter onto the wet paint to give the wreaths that extra sparkle! We used Aileen's tacky glue to attach the pipe cleaner bows. They are super easy and add a little more of the Christmas spirit to our classroom!

Classroom Tour: The Main Room

Click on the "My Classroom" page to view a slideshow of my main classroom!  I am lucky enough to have two rooms all to myself so I will work on posting pictures from my Centers Room soon. 

Bestie's Broncos Barrettes

My mom and sister have been bow and barrette making machines this week!  I found some Denver Broncos material in the scrap bin today and just had to make matching Broncos barrettes for me and my best friend, Trisha!  I had my mom show me a cloth flower barrette that she had been working on and just copied her design.  These were so easy to make.  It only took me a few minutes to make each one.

Can't wait to wear this with my Tebow jersey next weekend!  Go Broncos!

DIY Wall Decor

I saw some wall decor on Etsy at the Pretty Foldings shop and thought I'd try my hand at making my own.  I started by making paper flowers and butterflies as seen in my previous post.  I then painted an 11x14 canvas with black and white acrylic paint until I liked how it looked. 

 

I then hunted for some twigs outside on our property.  I used high temp hot glue to attach them to the canvas.  I originally thought about painting the twigs black but I liked their natural look better.

I used the hot glue to attach the flowers and butterflies.  I placed the top butterfly on the end of one of the twigs that is not glued down to give it a bit more dimension.  I am thinking about doing two more of these to line up across my bedroom wall.

  I took these pictures with my Droid so the quality is not the best and the lighting in our basement made the canvas look a bit grayish.

Gettin' My Paper Crafting On

My sister is visiting from New Mexico for the Thanksgiving holiday and we spent the day at my mom's house.  The morning immediately turned from browsing Pinterest to full on crafting in the basement.  While my mom and sister worked on hair bows for little girls, I was determined to learn how to make paper flowers after seeing a really amazing piece of artwork on Pinterest that incorporated canvas and paper flowers.  I found a pretty good tutorial for Simple Paper Flowers. 

I made my first flower with yellow printer paper and then decided to try some out of newsprint.  I found an old textbook from high school and began tearing out pages.  I also made a few paper butterflies and attempted several rolled paper flowers (these did not turn out the way I envisioned them). 

I'm hoping to pick up some canvas and turn these into some wall decor for my bedroom.  I will post a picture of the finished product if it turns out how I'm hoping. 

Fingerprint Turkeys

I originally saw this Thanksgiving craft on Pinterest.  It did link to http://uniquecraft.info but the page says it is currently suspended.

Each of my preschoolers created their own fingerprint turkey card and picked a person to write a thank you to.  Most of my students chose to give their card to someone in their family; however, a few children chose to give them to people at school (e.g. counselor, principal, other students).  

Examples of Thank You's:

• (To counselor) I love you, Ms. _____!  Thank you for playing games with me!
• (To peer) Thank you for being nice and being my friend! Thank you for telling me to tell my mom to come to your house!
• (To mom) Thank you for cutting chicken and rabbits! (We are a small country school...enough said!)

Pumpkin Pie in a Cup

I got this idea from Vanessa at www.pre-kpages.com and decided to use it as a Thanksgiving celebration with my students.  I followed the recipe Vanessa provided but I also wanted a more visual representation that my students could follow.  I created this preschooler-recipe on Publisher and found the clip art on Google Images.  

Pumpkin Pie in a Cup - Recipe for Preschoolers

As a whole group, we reviewed what baking tools we would be using and what their functions were.  We also looked over our ingredients and read through the recipe.  We then split into two groups of 7-8 students with either myself or my classroom aide.  

The preschoolers took turns adding in the various ingredients.  Everyone was given a turn mixing the pudding with the whisk and using the rolling pin to crush graham crackers. 

The preschoolers all agreed that their favorite part was getting to eat the finished products!  We made a few extra cups that we then gave to our principal, secretary, counselor, custodian and lunch lady as thank you's for all the hard work they do.  It was the perfect way to end our week of giving thanks!

A Tuturrific Halloween

I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures of my Halloween costumes.  The first costume I made was for my school Halloween carnival.  The first grade teacher and I had the great idea to come as salt and pepper!  We each made a tutu (25 yd rolls of 6" tulle from the Tulle Source...we used about 5 rolls per tutu).  I found the colanders in the dollar section at Target.  We used the die cut machine at school to cut our letters and used some silver glitter to help them stand out.  These were fun and super cheap!

The second costume I wore was for Halloween/my birthday costume party.  I borrowed some butterfly wings from the preschool and made a tutu to match!  I had the antennae headband from my bumblebee costume last year.  Tossed on some black heeled boots and voila!

Tutus just add an extra dash of fun to any costume!

Up, up and away!

This is the bulletin board I created this year to welcome my new students into preschool!

I made my own balloon stencil on tag board and cut the balloons from construction paper.  I wrote a child's name on each one.  I then stapled white yarn to the wall as the balloon's string.  I made the cloud by strategically scrunching up white butcher paper for a 3D effect.  The bulletin board title was cut on my Cricut using the Cuttin' Up cartridge.

Crafting for the Lil' Lady

A friend at church taught me how to make a diaper cake for my sister's baby shower.  It took us about 2 hours to finish together. It was much easier than I originally thought it would be!

My sister and I worked for an entire evening of watching movies to create this flowing canopy for my niece's nursery.  We slip-knotted the tulle around an embroidery hoop and then wrapped the remaining exposed portions of the hoop with the leftover tulle. We used a glue gun to attach three large silk flowers. 

 

We used ribbon to hang the finished canopy from one hook in the ceiling. 

Tutu Chick!

 My sister's niece came to visit us this summer in Colorado.  Her ballerina shirt was just begging for a matching tutu!  This was sweet little S rocking her tutu at church!  Such a cool chick!

Minnie Hat and Matching Tutu

My sister and I are absolutely crazy about Disney so I could not pass up making this sweet little hat when I found the FREE pattern online.  It was extremely easy and quick to crochet!  It is sized for a newborn.
Unfortunately the original author of this pattern removed it from her blog due to copyright worries.

 

This definitely needed a matching tutu!  I measured the circumference of a newborn sized skirt and cut my elastic 2" shorter.  I cut my tulle in 6" wide strips and then doubled the skirt length to cut the length of my tulle.  Several slipknots later, I had a new adorable outfit for my lil' lady!

Welcome to Tree Stone National Park

Every February our entire school participates in a read-a-thon.  The theme this year was "Going on a Read Trip" which took the students on "tours" of various national parks.  The preschoolers used their knowledge of wildlife, nature and national parks to create this classroom mural.

The first thing we did was blot white paint on our backdrop with cottonballs to create clouds.  We then used construction paper to create the mountains, trees and our sun (which of course needed glitter!).  The preschoolers then honed their cutting skills by taking scissors to magazines to find animals for our park. 

The preschoolers came up with several name ideas for our park including Beautiful National Park, Butterfly National Park and my personal favorite, Super Awesome National Park.  The majority of the class voted for Tree Stone National Park, the only national park where buffaloes and polar bears roam the same mountain range!

 
I was so impressed with the preschooler's creativity!  They searched for dirt, grass and small sticks outside to add to our mural.  Several students used the art center to create signs (we wrote down what they dictated).  They also decided that we needed a road so people could visit the park.  I added the clip art cars driven by the preschoolers.  They loved it!

My 1st Try at a Tutu!

My sister is expecting my first sweet little niece right now!  I have decided that this precious little girl is going to need a closet full of tutus!  I measured my roommates little girl to create my first little tutu.  I sewed 3/4" elastic at a length of 2" less than the waist measurement (as the elastic stretches out while tying on tulle).  I cannot remember how much tulle I used but I cut it in 6" wide strips.  To cut the length, I measured from waist to knee and doubled that measurement.  I then put the elastic around my thigh and tied on the tulle by slip knotting it around the elastic.  

In retrospect, I should've cut the ribbon into longer lengths.  I also sewed ladybug buttons at the knot of each ribbon.  We have been calling my soon-to-be niece "the Lil' Lady" so it seemed fitting to make her a ladybug tutu.  This will not fit her until she is close to a year old.

The Pixar Alphabet

I created these alphabet flashcards for a former student who loved the Disney Pixar movies.  He was three years old at the time and non-verbal.  He loved looking through his cards!  I also made him a Pixar Alphabet poster that I could hang on the wall or place on the floor so he could match up his flashcards.  The first words he ever spoke in my classroom were "Mo" for Nemo and "Dohy" for Dory.

   

 The Pixar Alphabet pdf

I store my flashcards in a quart size ziploc bag.  I used packaging tape to attach the alphabet title to the bag.