Am I the only one who spends a ridiculous amount of time on pinterest, pinning everything from recipes to remedies, and then finds themselves overwhelmed? Well, it happens to me daily, and I'm going to pretend it happens to you too so I don't seem so crazy. I get the most overwhelmed when it comes to the pins that are related to home decorating and projects for pre-k. I have so many adorable pins that I don't know where to begin! Have you seen all of the cute shit out there for Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving? They are so precious, but there's no way in hell I will ever be able to do them all. Especially with 17 kids in my class! I would end up hot gluing my eyeballs shut or their mouths shut before it was all said and done. And as for decorating my house...that just gets put on the back burner. I got my one and only fall wreath project done, and that's probably all that I will accomplish for Fall 2012!
There are a few things that I pinned for my classroom that I have managed to complete, so I wanted to share them. We haven't gotten to many of the fall ones yet, because everytime I try to decide which ones I want to do I have mini panic attacks, so don't expect to see a lot of that theme just yet. Some of the below pics are crafts, some activities, and some just random decorations since school started. P.S. As soon as I can get the correct links to where some of the pins/ideas came from, I will put them up! Technology is currently not working in my favor...
First we have my bulletin board cupcake. Our school theme this year is "A Sweet Place To Learn". I got the background, which is cupcake wrapping paper, from Walmart. The border is from a teacher store I don't know the name of. And the cupcake I made out of bb paper and tissue paper. Easy enough! I had seen some bulletin boards via pinterest that had similar ideas making ice cream sundaes, so I tweaked it to fit my needs.
Super cute picture idea for the first day of school! I had an old picture frame, sticky-tacked some pre-cut letters I had, and that was all she wrote. I took pictures of all of the kids and had them printed. I sent one copy home and had one copy on our bulletin board at the beginning of the year.
The next few are pictures of "discovery bottles" I have made. You can use ANYTHING to make these. I have several more I am working on, but here is what the kids have been playing with so far.
This one is a gatorade bottle; dyed rice; and random letters I found. The kids love the sound that the rice makes, as well as identifying the letters that peek through. HOT GLUE THE LID ONTO THE BOTTLE WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED, NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF BOTTLE YOU ARE MAKING.
This is a "shape" discovery bottle (used from an old Sweet Tea Vodka bottle--don't judge, it was a cute bottle!). I used small foam shapes, wiggly eyes, and random other tiny shape objects I found in my classroom.
This one is just fun! Inside is water, regular pompoms, sparkly pompoms, beads, cut up ribbon, and other tidbits from our "arts and crafts" center that would fit. The girls love this one.
Letter "S" bottle. We were focusing on letter "S" one week so I found things that started with "S" to put in the bottle. There is a snake, a seashell, different sized "S" cutouts, "S" beads, a sun, and a sunflower. Another favorite of the kiddos.
Downfall of using the sunflower was that the tiny black pieces from the center of the flower came out and were floating all over the bottle. It doesn't bother the kids, but it bugs the crap out of me!
Whoever thought of using a hairdryer to melt crayons and watch as they splatter across a canvas to make "art" was pure genius, and also extremely bored at some point. My class loved this activity. All you need is a poster board, cardboard, or just some heavy form of paper, crayons, hot glue gun to glue the crayons, and a hair dryer.
These are felt jack-o-lanterns. I cut out the pumpkins, stems, leaves, and different size/shape face pieces all out of felt. I put them in a bag and the kiddos were able to create their own jack-o-lantern during centers. I'm considering making a turkey for Thanksgiving and I plan to make ornaments and trees for Christmas.
In Pre-K we focus a lot on fine motor skills. We also have different worksheets/activities that require the children to use scissors. So, as a way to introduce them to the correct way to hold the scissors and practice cutting, I made this "cutting tub". I put scrap pieces of construction paper, tissue paper, cardboard, ribbon, kleenex, fabric and scissors in the tub. The students can attempt to cut out a specific shape, or simply practice cutting. Now that we have been in school longer and they are more developed, I have added dotted lines for them to practice cutting, as well as other papers with a specifc shape/line pattern to cut out. It's great practice and keeps them busy.
One of the only fall related crafts we have gotten to so far! We made fall trees using paint and Q-tips. The kids thought I was crazy at first, "Those goes in yo ear Ms. Robot, not paint!!" They finally trusted me though and we had some pretty cute fall trees to adorn our classroom.
And a mommy pinterest find. All you need is shaving cream, food coloring, cups, paintbrush(es), a bathtub, and an eager child. It's pretty self explanatory once you get it all mixed up. The food coloring did not stain the walls, tub, or children. They had a blast and I had to start draining the tub with them still in it to get them out. I can't find the pictures, but we have also played with glowsticks in the bathtub as well. They weren't as crazy about that as the paint, mostly because they said being in the water in the dark freaked them out (don't worry, it wasn't pitch black or anything, there was light from the window and a small light in the bathroom on, I'm not that mean!). Still a fun idea to try though!
I have a lot more "in progress" crafts and activities I will post about once they are complete! I'm going to try and get some Thanksgiving things done in the next couple of weeks...if I don't go crazy first. Or, if I am unable to get Thanksgiving done, I will just start planning all of my Christmas projects now :) Either way, I'll have plenty of fun ideas for you all very soon!
Happy Mutha-Effin-Monday!
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