Artwork/Handout Holder for Nursery

This is a post that is over a year late, but better now than never.  When I was called to nursery I made a bunch of changes.  This one is one of my favorites and everyone else seemed to love it too. One of the things I loved was when my kids visited a nursery in Utah they had a cute tree on the door with birds on it.  When the kids came they moved their bird from the tree to the chalk board.  In fact when I went to search for ideas on Sugar Doodle I found the suggestion there.  I also found a similar idea there with the pictures ready to be downloaded and printed.  I loved the idea of jungle and animals.  Then I had another idea.  It came from school, some of the new teachers glued clothes pins to the wall to display the kids' work.  I debated back and forth what to do.  In the end this is what I decided.  I printed several copies of the animals at Costco - it is not expensive and I love the quality.  I then cut them out, wrote names on them and laminated them.  After that I hot glued them onto clothes pins.

Then I turned them over and glued magnets on the back.

As the kids arrive (or after nursery starts and things are settled) I put the magnet of each child who was there onto the bulletin board.  As we did our art activity I would clip it onto their magnet.  It didn't even matter if we had time to write their name on their paper as long as it went straight onto their clip.  When it was about time for church to end I moved the magnets to the outside of the door of the nursery.  When parents came to pick them up they would take anything on their child's clip (notes, handouts, artwork, etc) and their child.  It is nice, convenient, and saves a lot of time when multiple children are being picked up at once.

Some things to keep in mind:
I wrote first and last names on the first set of animals I made.  I think it helps if there is a substitute.  If you don't know the child's name, but know the family they belong to you can figure it out by reading the clips.  I was going take their picture and cut it out to put the picture over the face of the animal, but decided against it.  I also learned that some bishops won't let you use last names due to safety.  Just be safe and do what is best for your nursery.
 

I Have Feelings (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 21)

Sunbeam Lesson 21: I Have Feelings 
or
Behold Your Little Ones: Nursery Manual, Lesson 19: I Can Be Happy

I moved the tab so it wasn't right under the mouth.

I made this to go with my lesson in Sunbeams.  However, I was meaning to make it for Nursery during singing time for the song Smiles:

If you chance to meet a frown, 

Do not let it stay.

Quickly turn it upside down

And smile that frown away. 

No one likes a frowning face. 

Change it for a smile.

Make the world a better place

By smiling all the while.  

The kit I bought (I mentioned in my first singing time post that I have pictures for singing time) has something similar and the kids ALWAYS wanted a turn to do it, but since there was only one the singing leader always held it.  So when I came upon the Sunbeam lesson: I Have Feelings ~ and you were supposed to have a happy/sad face ~ I knew what I was going to make! {For those of you that teach Nursery it also goes with lesson 19 : I Can Be Happy.}

All you need to do is:

• download (link at the bottom of this post), 
• print (I recommend cardstock), 
• cut (don't forget to cut out the two windows), and 
• poke a brad through the star (line up the circles first so it goes through both sheets) ~ Teacher Tip: if you lay it on the carpet first it is easier to poke the brad through.
• hold the top circle and use the tab to move the bottom circle.

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

Download the Smile/Frown Face Here 

The Itsy Bitsy Spider Song for Nursery

I can't believe I haven't had time to blog about what I have done in nursery.  The reason I can't believe it is because I have already been released (a couple months ago).  I LOVED this calling.  It was great to play with the "babies" since my "baby" is 8.  I was only the nursery leader for about 7 months, but I must have matured quickly because they moved me up a level: The Sunbeams!  I will share things I did in there (I have lots of pictures I took before I turned everything over).  Hopefully I can prepare my lessons a little sooner and share what I am doing with my Sunbeams too.
One thing I learned at my training was to help the kids sing ~ or at least stay with you during singing time ~ was to give them something to hold.  I already had many things made from when I my kids were little, but this idea I'm going to share was genius.  It is so much more fun to hold an object instead of a piece of laminated paper - no matter how cute the paper is. 

I present, The Itsy Bitsy Spider:

The kids absolutely LOVE wearing a spider ring when singing the song!  Ever since I brought the rings to church guess what song they ALWAYS want to sing first?  Yep, the Spider Song!
On my way out I had to leave everything nice and tidy so I made some signage for the spiders.

I recycled a container from our favorite Chinese Food Restaurant formally carrying Sweet and Sour Sauce.  If you don't have one of these nifty containers to recycle you can use Ziploc or Rubbermaid containers:

For my followers, I will share this printable with you!  Oh and I almost forgot.  I know some people sing it Eensy Weensy Spider so I made labels for that too.  Just. In. Case.

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

Download Spider Labels here

Thanks for reading!

General Conference Bags for my Nursery Kids

When I was released from Cub Scouts and as a primary teacher I was called as the Nursery leader.  One day I'll post what I have started in there, but several months later I still feel like there is so much to do/learn!  My first nursery post is going to be about the kits I made them for General Conference this coming weekend.

Last year I found an idea in which you stick a picture of the prophet or apostles on a bag and when that person was speaking in General Conference the kids were able to do/eat whatever is in that bag.  I found it right before conference and threw it together (not completely) for my kids.  This year I hope to make it a little more complete.  I decided to do something similar for my nursery kids (right now we only average 4-6 kids, but that will change shortly)! 
I found this awesome site that had all the pictures I needed sized to print on labels.  The only downside is that I didn't have labels and of course I remembered Saturday night that if I was going to give out something for Conference it would have to be the following day so I just printed them onto regular paper, cut them out, and used packaging tape to tape them onto baggies (both snack size and sandwich size).  Inside the baggies I put pictures to color (I used some from here, but I later I think printing some from the nursery manual would have probably been better for this age.  My internet was BARELY working so I wasn't able to search around for other pages), treats, or activities.  The activity bags included: a bag with dental floss & cheerios so they could make a necklace (I tied one cheerio onto the end so it was ready to go),  a matching game - I printed two copies of this Bingo game made for toddlers.  I cut out the pictures using the lines as guides & put them into a bag to be used as a matching game (there were nine pictures per game so they didn't have all the apostles), home-made play dough I had leftover from these Valentine's cards, and bubbles (I put this in President Monson's so the parents could choose to blow it a few times every time he spoke or just give it to them the first time he spoke).  I also had snacks: Capri sun, teddy grahams, Nilla Wafers, pretzels, skittles.

I put it all in a gallon size Ziploc bag and included a note so the parents knew what it was all about.  I introduced it to the kids and told them they had to wait until conference before they could open it.  Hopefully it'll make conference a little more exciting for those small, but oh so bright spirits! 

Sorry for the pictures.  The one of the items in the bag was taken with my phone.  The others are in a kit that isn't complete, but it will show you what I did.  We are missing large heart marshmallows, another coloring page, and a bag of teddy grahams.  Hopefully the activities and food will be spread out!