St. Patrick's Day Teacher Gifts

Yesterday afternoon my little girl and I took some time and made a few small St. Patrick's Day gifts for her teacher and other key people at her school. I found a great tutorial for this project at Inspiring Creations and was able to find most of the supplies (except for the candy and little pots) in my stash of supplies here at home.
I mostly followed the instructions listed on the original blog, except I used a lollipop stick to hold up the shamrock (because I have lots of them!) and I didn't bother to glue the floral foam into the little clay pots, I just wedged it in there. The shamrocks are hot-glued onto the lollipop sticks and my daughter wrote little messages on a second green shamrock that I hot-glued onto the back of the stick.
Then we packaged everything up with a cellophane bag and tied with a gold ribbon and a cute tag (that I embellished with rub-on letters from my scrapbooking stash) and her little gifts are ready for St. Patrick's Day!

M&M Science Fair Project

Pardon the lack of blog posts this week, but I have been consumed by my daughter's M&M science fair project--which unfortunately does not involve me consuming any M&M's!!
My seven year old has put SO much time and effort into this project! She has counted, sorted, thought, written, erased, rewritten, and put hours and hours of work into her M&M project. Her school science fair is coming up soon and, based on the results of that science fair, some of the children will have the opportunity to represent the school at the state science and engineering fair. Princess is very self-motivated and wants to go to the state science and engineering fair.
I'm doing my part and being a supportive mama--taking pictures, typing up her drafts, and tracking down the materials she needs.
Really though, this project is hers and I'm thoroughly impressed with the amount of work she has put into it. She is the youngest child in her grade (because she skipped first grade) and her academic skills amaze me.
Now her scientific report is written and we're working on the display board--and it is oh-so-cute!

Teacher Appreciation Door Decorating

Yesterday I talked about the gifts my daughter gave her teachers. Today I want to talk about door decorating. I've seen the idea of decorating classroom doors for teacher appreciation day online, but never in person--still, I was excited to bring this idea to my daughter's school this year. She attends a preschool-grade 8 school, so it was a bit of a challenge to make it work for all the grade levels, but I think we did it. The teachers LOVED it and were totally surprised by the doors.

The door pictured above is the door I decorated for my daughter's classroom. She is in a first/second grade classroom. I sent home flower petals with each child with a sentence starter on each petal for the student to complete. (My teacher is fun because... I like it when my teacher... ) Then the stem of the flower is made up of pictures of the children. The watering can says XXX showers her students with... and the droplets say patience, kindness, love, respect, and wisdom! Then I added a few cute little bugs to the picture (caterpillar, ladybug, dragonfly, butterfly, and a bee) and labeled them with the names of the specialists, the principal, the priest, and the office manager. It was a big hit and I had a lot of fun making it!
This is the preschool door--with the teachers names covered for privacy. The "A+" is on there because we also were celebrating Catholic Schools Week and the theme was "A+ for Catholic Schools". I forgot to take a picture of the kindergarten door, but it was covered with shiny stars and pictures of the children. Really bright and colorful!
This was the 3/4th grade door (with a lot of sunlight shining in on it from the stairwell!). I had to erase the initials of the school and the name of the teacher. What I really love about this door is that the room mother had the students AND the parents get involved. Each of those handprints has writing on it with things the individual (some students and some parents) appreciates about the teacher. I love this idea!
Whoops! This mom forgot to measure the door, so we had to do some cutting and rearranging when we went to hang the door decoration after school. Luckily it all worked out! She had each child do anagrams at home of a word they would use to describe the teacher and she included those words in the definition that is printed at the top of the yellow part of the paper. Perfect for a 5th/6th grade classroom.

I didn't take a picture of the 7th/8th grade door, but it was a simple poster and the room mother gave me a gift bag with some cards for the teacher to be put on the door knob. It is hard to get those almost-high schoolers to want to be crafty!

Here are some other resources for teacher appreciation door decorating that you may find useful:

• Skip to My Lou
• Mommy Blessings
• Sweet Craft Cakes

I'm linking up to Jen's Weekend WrapUp Party at Tatertots and Jello, Show Us Your Best at No Time For Flashcards, and Show and Share Day at Just a Girl! By the way, I'm still trying (desperately!) to win one of those handy-dandy Silhouette machines! The Domestic Diva has one she is giving away!

Teacher Appreciation Day Ideas

My little girl attends Catholic School and we celebrated Catholic Schools Week at the beginning of February. Teacher Appreciation Day was part of Catholic Schools Week--so we have that behind us already even though it seemed really early to be done with it. I thought I'd share what we did to show the teachers at school that we appreciate them.
First though, during my blog break I missed the chance to write down some news. My little girl finished up kindergarten last year at one Catholic school and then transferred schools over the summer to a different Catholic school (we didn't move). Her new class is a first/second grade classroom and almost immediately she was doing the second grade work rather than the first grade work--and by October she was officially moved up into second grade. She skipped right over first grade and has settled in just fine to second grade. Sniff, sniff--she is growing up so quickly!
Having her at a new school means I can reuse some of my favorite ideas from last year--no need to recreate the wheel! So we gave these water bottles out to the principal, office manager, music teacher, and PE teacher. I wrote a tutorial last year for how to make the pocket tag. This year I used a cute number printed scrapbook paper behind the Crystal Light packet and I like the "school" effect it gave the tag.
I made this box of office supply goodies (and chocolate!) for her classroom teacher. Yes, it is nearly identical to the one I made last year for her kindergarten teacher. I even used the same scrapbook paper! I found the idea on eighteen25 and just love it! The box is an embroidery floss box I bought at JoAnn Fabrics for less than $5.
My daughter's note inside is my favorite part. It says: "Dear XXX, You are a great teacher. You have us do fun activities like the one where we put celery in colored water. I like it when we play jump rope together at recess. I love you. Love, YYY"

Click here to see the door decorating we did for teacher appreciation.

I'm linking to Hookin Up with House of Hepworths for the first time. I have to say, HOH is a great blog (I must have been under a rock, how have I missed it for this long?!) and there are some great links going on over there too!

Egg Carton Craft

Okay, let's try this post again! I had to delete it on Sunday after somebody posted a link to my site on another site and I started getting slammed with unwanted traffic. Those people did not have good intentions.
Princess and I did this craft from Catholic Icing on Palm Sunday in preparation for Holy Week. She had a wonderful time crafting with mama while her brother napped. We talked about the disciples and she really enjoyed herself. She's bringing it to school on Thursday for kindergarten show-and-tell. Perfect timing for Holy Week!
You'll have to visit Catholic Icing for the full instructions, but I can tell you that the only supplies needed are two egg cartons, printouts from the blog, glue, scissors, and something to color with. Princess did all the coloring and I did the cutting and gluing.

Visiting Sissy in Kindergarten

I'm linking to Angry Julie's Wordless Wednesday

First Days of School

My babies celebrated their first days of school at the beginning of September. It has been quite an adjustment getting used to commuting to school. I'm now driving 2+ hours a day to get them to school. Ugh!
First up was my baby boy. He is attending preschool for the first time. Twice a week, just in the morning...he loves it!
I just can't believe he's old enough for preschool! I'm kind of still in denial about it. This is a new preschool for us and it is just down the road from my daughter's school. Her preschool wasn't willing to deal with my little boy's nut allergy. Luckily this other preschool is working hard to keep my baby safe!
Yes, he loved his first day! No tears or anything! Next up, Princess had her first day of kindergarten. She is attending Catholic school and looooves her uniform! Really loves it! She was dancing around the uniform store when we bought the jumpers and sweaters--the older girls were looking at her like she was crazy!
Yes, she was excited for school!!
My baby girl is getting so big!!
Heading in for the first time as an official student!!
Her first day of school was a two hour orientation and parents were allowed to attend. Since then, parents haven't been allowed in the classroom! She's in all day kindergarten and loving it! She cried on the first regular day and since then she's been fine.
And here are my babies on the first day they both went off to school at the same time. Sniff, sniff! (Although really I've been upstairs at my little boy's preschool so I've been able to hear him the whole time...but he doesn't know I'm up there!)