A Bag of Mints {Teacher Appreciation}

This is an easy and inexpensive gift to make for the teachers, but the little message covers a lot.  I gathered a variety of minty treats and put them in a cello bag.  I made the toppers in three different styles so you can pick what you like best (one pictures above):

The little saying I found on the internet, but have no idea who wrote it to credit says:

Thanks for your commitmint to help me learn.

Thanks for your encouragemint to always to my best.

Thanks for your involvemint in my life.

Thanks for your investmint of time and energy to make school such a great place to be.

Thanks for making each day an enjoymint.

Thanks for helping to create a nice environmint  for me to learn and grow.

Everything you have done this year has really mint a lot to me!

Some mint ideas: Peppermints, lifesavers, mint gum, Altoids, mint M&M's, butter-mints, Andes mints, etc.

This last year I made these gifts again, but I changed the packaging a little.  I only used wintergreen lifesavers.  I bought a large bag at Costco and had enough to cover a lot of people.  I only put about 15 mints in a bag, but it turned out beautifully.  I had enough for my daughter's teacher and the teacher that comes in her class to help, the 7 specialists (librarian, assistant librarian, computer teacher, art teacher, 2 PE teachers), the office staff, the principle and assistant principle, nurse, and the middle school teachers.  We are on a major budget this year so I was very pleased with how nicely it turned out and how little it cost to cover all those people!

Download the Printable HERE

I am Thankful for My Hands (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 17)

Sunbeam Lesson 17: I am Thankful for My Hands

We had a lot of fun today!  We talked about our hands and everything they can do and feel.  On half a piece of cardstock (landscape) I typed My Hands Can Feel Many Things! at the bottom and on the other side I typed My hands are unique!  I cut the sheet in half.  During class I traced their hands on each of the pieces.  On the paper that talked about feeling things we glued things they could touch/feel.  I just searched the house to find things I already had that were of different texture.  Here is the one I made ahead of time:

I cut the items at home so we could just glue them on (their hands are tiny, you need small pieces-smaller than I thought - I had to trim most of them). I also brought my hot glue gun to help them stick better.  Each finger had an item glued on and I found so many I put two more on the palm.  I ended up with felt, sandpaper, furry materiel, boa, cotton ball, bubble wrap, aluminum foil.  They loved to feel the different items.
With the other hand we talked about how each hand is unique.  I used a stamp pad to put their fingerprints on this hand (don't forget the baby wipes):

Those hands went in a gallon Ziploc baggie:

I placed a label on it so the parents knew what our lesson was all about:

In the bag I also included other things they can do with their hands:

Bubble wrap.  I also gave them a smaller piece to pop in class.  We did that during the lesson and then they had the large piece in their bag to pop at home.

This hand I printed off my Primary Partners CD.  It is double sided and glued together like a mitt.

 We eat with our hands so they had goldfish crackers:

 And I found this cute worksheet that they color with their hands (link at end of post with the downloads).

I forgot to add it before I took pictures, but clay (or play dough) was in there too.

The kids loved doing everything with their hands and taking home a bag of things to do.  Our lesson and making the hands filled the time, but if you had extra time they could color one of the sheets during class.

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 Hands Here

Download Editable Labels (may lose font, but there are other labels on the sheet)

Download PDF Labels (the font will looked how I used it)

Link to church hands worksheet is here

I Can Pray to Heavenly Father (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 4)

Lesson 4: I Can Pray to Heavenly Father

To help explain prayer I made a Bingo Sheet.   

Each column is a different part of prayer.  First column is the things we do when we pray.  The next column is different types of prayer - ways we pray, the third column are people we pray for, the fourth column has things we are thankful for, and the last column are things we can ask for.
There are six different Bingo Sheets.  You can give each child a set to play with their families or one sheet and play as a class.  I laminated each sheet.  We played as a class and then they took it home.  I meant to post this right after the lesson.  I was going to give them the link so they could print sheets to play as a family.

I also have a prayer tree that I started using many years ago (I won't say how long ago, but let you know I started teaching sunbeams right out of high school). But since it was so long ago it is a paper copy.  I need to work on getting it onto the computer because it is one of my favorites.

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 Prayer Bingo Here

We Can Pray as a Family (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 27)

Sunbeam Lesson 27: We Can Pray As a Family

For this lesson I created a prayer puzzle:

I copied it on several colors.  Since they can't read I wanted each match to be a different color since the puzzles are all the same shape.  For example Bow My Head and the picture next to it was on blue cardstock, the next two (close my eyes & picture) were on green cardstock, then next two on red cardstock, and the next two on yellow cardstock.  The idea is to reinforce what they should be doing during the prayer. I then rotated the colors (first on green, second red, third yellow, fourth blue, etc).  I put every set in a ziplock bag to give the kids.

Earlier in the year (lesson 4) I also made Prayer Bingo.  It would work with this lesson as well:  

There are six different Bingo Sheets.  You can give each child a set to play with their families or one sheet and play as a class.  I laminated each sheet.  We played as a class and then they took it home.  I meant to post this right after the lesson.  I was going to give them the link so they could print sheets to play as a family.
Each column is a different part of prayer.  First column is the things we do when we pray.  The next column is different types of prayer - ways we pray, the third column are people we pray for, the fourth column has things we are thankful for, and the last column are things we can ask for.

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 Prayer Puzzle Here

Download Prayer Bingo Here

Lego Birthday Party - Games - Part 2

The party was a hit and the kids had a great time!  I had plenty of games, in fact we didn't have time for one of them and there are a couple I wanted to do that I left out completely.  As the party goers arrived they went into the kitchen to decorate a Lego Figure Head.  It was just the head on yellow paper.  I did have this picture up on the computer to give them some face ideas.  These would be used later in the game of pin the head on the Lego Man.  After they did that they made a guess of how many Lego's were in this jar:

I had slips of paper with their name on it (in Lego font of course) so they just needed to write their estimation on it.  This jar and an empty jar to place their slips in were on the party table.  After most everyone arrived we played the hit of the party, especially among the boys!  

It is similar to Pictionary and they do sell it as a Lego game called Creationary.  I spent some time on YouTube checking it out.  First of all I wasn't going to invest more into this party (the game isn't cheap) and second, the reviews weren't great.  They said the idea behind the game was good, but there weren't enough bricks.  So I decided to create the game myself.  First we sorted our Lego bricks by color.  I used a party tray (veggie tray) to store them in.  Next I made the cards.  I made 9 cards in five different themes.  We had animals, nature, vehicles, buildings, and food.  I printed the pictures off on white paper and then I printed number cards on colored paper with each number having its own color.  I cut all the cards out and glued a picture to a number card keeping all the same theme with the same number/color of paper.  For example all of the nature themed cards were on green paper with the number 5 on the back. I then laminated the cards for durability.

These are the building cards.

When it came time to play I was able to let the kids know what numbers/colors went with what theme.  Nature is green 5, vehicles are purple 3, buildings are blue 6, etc.  We divided into two teams.  Each team rolled one die.  The number on the die was the card they picked.  So if they rolled a 5 they picked the card with a five.  Their team could guess as many times as they could in two minutes.  After two minutes the builder had to stop building and each person on their team got one guess.  If they guessed correctly they received a point.  If they didn't the other team could guess it correctly and steal the point.  The cards were numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, 6.  I left out 2.  If they rolled a 2 they got a chance for double the points and the other team got to pick the category.  Amazingly enough 2 was the only number that wasn't rolled.  The boys REALLY loved this game and wanted to keep playing it.  We let each person go once and that was all we had time for.  If you want to use the cards I made, you can download them at the bottom of this post.

I didn't give the winners anything special.  Instead after each child played each game they were able to go pick a Lego Crayon Man:

Sorry this isn't the best picture.  I went a little crazy in the crayon prep and made a whole bunch of these cute men.  We laid them out in rows of color and wrote their color at the bottom of the row. After each game was completed they picked out a new crayon.  So far two games were played - guesstemation (being a little creative with the words - estimate/guess) and the creationary game.

Next we played pin the head on the Lego man with the heads they created:

Using a projector at work I traced a Lego Figure onto a large piece of paper.  I brought it home to create our Lego Man.  First I took wrapping paper in red and blue.  Using spray adhesive I adhered the paper wrong sides together so it became double sided.  I cut out the pants out of blue, shirt out of red, and the hands and head out of yellow paper.  I drew on some details.  We gave the front of our Lego Man a face, but left the back blank.  I hung him on the glass door and taped some balloons in his hand (it turned out to be a VERY windy day so the balloons ended up getting taped in several places).  When the party goers came to the door our Lego Man was there to great them.  When it came time for the game you could still see him on the inside minus a face. If you look at the collage above you can see some of their artistic abilities.

We announced the winners of the guessing game and then had cake, ice cream, and presents.  Then it was back to more games.

For this game you had to use a straw and move all your Lego pieces off of your plate and onto the floor using only your sucking power.  You could also spread out Lego pieces on a table, set a timer and see how many pieces you could put on your plate using a straw and sucking in a set amount of time.  The birthday girl liked the first idea so that is what we did:

To make it more fun I took yellow square plates and drew Lego faces on them.  We also added the top part of the head by cutting it out of construction paper and gluing it on.  I used polka dotted straws and hot glued a Lego head to it.  I forgot to take pictures, but they are the same heads I used for the juice straws.  We put equal bricks on the plates, same size and amount on each plate.  They formed a circle with their backs to the center.  On go they moved those bricks off their plate as fast as the could.  After the game they could keep their plate and straw if they wanted.

The next game was memory.  I had a friend save baby food jars. I painted them like I have seen on various blogs.  I used spray paint, but it has been cold, wet, and windy here.  Unfortunately I don't have a garage so I tried to cheat and many of them didn't turn out well.  So I switched tactics (wish I thought of this first) - I put some yellow paint inside the jars, swirled it around and then dumped out the extra.  They were nice and smooth and pretty.  To make the faces I wrote on the jars with a sharpie. The jars that had paint inside were actually easier to write on.

On the bottom of the jars I put pictures of Lego pieces.  I had two of each picture.  The kids played just like memory.  Inside of the jars I had Lego Mini Figures.  I was going to use them for the next game, but we ran out of time.  

The last game ended up being fun.  We played it on Date Night.  (To see how we do Date Night see this post). 

This was an idea floating around Pinterest, but it was just a picture, no game.  I wanted to play the game so I created it.  You need one die, a mini figure (one per player), a board, and Lego bricks.  Above the kids used a 2x4 Lego block but a 2x2 or 2x3 would fit a little better.  I made a couple options.  I chose to print the first link (it used less ink) and trim it down.  I then glued it to colored card stock and laminated.  To play you roll the die and follow the instructions.  They always have one base block and can never lose that one.  They loved the game and played it several times. 

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 Creationary Game Cards Here 

Download the Lego Board Game Here 
and Here
and Here

Lego Matching/Memory Game

I link up with parties listed here.

Lego Party Part 3 Coming soon. 

3.14 = Pi = Pie

This is our second year of making pie on Pi day or March 14 (3.14).  To see last year's project and how to make pie on a stick click here.  This year the middle school didn't do their pie fundraiser (bummer), but we still wanted to give the teachers a little bit of pie.  We made pie on a stick again except this time I used a kit I bought at Target on the Christmas clearance.  ~I'll most more about it later~ These pies are smaller than using a cookie/biscuit cutter.  You can do them any size you want and and shape you want.  Just a little advice don't make them too big, last years pies were a bit heavy and some of the pies fell off the stick.
Since the pies were smaller I wanted to make smaller tags.  Here is what I came up with:

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 PI Tag Here 

Thanks for stopping by.  To see who I link with check out the page tab above.

I am Thankful for Water (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 9)

Sunbeam Lesson 9:
I am Thankful for Water

My new goal (on top of everything else) is to try to post my Sunbeam lessons on here.  I have had lots of fun in the last year.  Reading others ideas and working in an elementary school has really helped me step it up (I started teaching sunbeams right out of high school - many moons ago).  My goal is to teach the spiritual doctrine in the lesson, but do it hands on so they learn, remember, and are able to tell their families all about it.

I will post last week's lesson soon, but I want to do today's while it is fresh in my memory (and I still need to take pictures of last week).  For the lessons 8-15 it talks about the Creation.  While they are listed as I am Thankful for lessons they talk about the creation.  We are in the process of making a book about the creation.  

The lessons aren't necessarily in order of the creation.  But that doesn't matter because I'm keeping all the pages until the end.  I still need to make a cover and other pages, but as I finish them I will post them.

For the book I'm cutting card stock in half for each page.  Every lesson will have at least one page and some will have more which means our creation book will have more than seven pages.  For this lesson I cut a light blue card stock in half.  I made this to go on it:

I cut them out and had them glued onto the blue paper so they just needed to color.  I left some room in the bottom right corner.  I'm going to make labels so they know which day of the creation it goes with.  I will take picture of the completed page, but I want to at least get this posted.  Each raindrop has something we need water for.  We talked about each one.

The other fun thing I did was a combination of ideas that I read about on sugardoodle.net.  My kids blew up some blue water balloons for me.  They are harder to blow up than they look.  I wanted to use these because they are small and I think they resemble raindrops.  We didn't have a lot of time during class, but at the end I gave each child a balloon and read the Raindrop Poem in the Enrichment activities.  They loved to throw the raindrops around and then I chased them back to their seats with a picture of a sun.  They were so excited to show their parents their raindrops!

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 Water Creation Page Here.

As I finish the other lessons I will post the links here:

For lesson 8 click here

For lesson 10 click here

For lesson 11 click here

For lesson 12 click here

For lesson 13 click here

For lesson 14 click here

For lesson 15 click here
Cover and Labels click here

PI 3.14 Day, DIY Pie on a Stick

Pi day is March 14.  Why? Because pi = 3.14 and PIE backwards is 314.

My daughter's middle school has Pie day on 3/14 (March 14) and the parents make pies for the school to sell by the slice as a fundraiser.  So instead of making a traditional pie we made pie on a stick.  I also wanted to give a little treat to the teachers.

First roll out your crust.  I used Pillsbury frozen crusts and rolled them out.  Take a round cookie cutter or biscuit cutter and cut the dough - you will need 2 of each circle.  Place the circles on a cookie sheet leaving room for sticks.

Place the sticks on the circles.  I used the large sticks.

We used apple pie filling from a can.  Scoop it out - not too much, about two apples.  Place another circle on top and seal it closed.  We used the end of one of the sticks to push it together.

Spread some egg white on top and sprinkle on some cinnamon sugar.

Cook it according to the directions on the package of the crust.  Keep an eye on it.  Print out the tags, cut out, punch, and slide onto the stick.

Here is a closer look of the tag:

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 tag here.

See my Link Party page to view Parties I've linked to.

Mustache Valentines

Mustaches are all the rage.  This is actually the third year my daughter(s) has been into mustaches.  Our first mustache project I shared was for Valentine's Day 2011, last year she went with chocolate covered marshmallows and this year we are back to mustaches.  We had all sorts of fun with her birthday party last summer too.
I created a bunch of mustache themed Valentines.  Some we will use and some are just for you!  Two sets were inspired from some great Amazon deals: adhesive mustaches (you can find these anywhere, even at the dollar store) and mustache earrings.  My original plan was for Boo to give the girls in her class mustache earrings and the boys adhesive mustaches, but much to my dismay I learned that there are a lot of 8-9 year old girls who don't have their ears pierced yet.  So her class will receive the adhesive mustaches and the teen will give the earrings to her friends.
Here is what I came up with for the adhesive mustaches:

I intended the first mustache saying to be used with the mustache earrings, but work well with the adhesive mustaches.  The saying just is used a lot, but that is all I could come up with for mustache earrings.  They were less than $1 each on Amazon with free shipping.  They take a long time to get here so if you want to do this order them for next year. 

You can also use the "stick" one with a stick or package of gum. Or even a package of paperclips or staples for your teacher.

I also made one that you can just print (no earring, gum, adhesive mustaches required).  These are designed to go on the jumbo craft sticks.  These sticks can be found in any craft store.  I bought a large box at Wal-mart.

For some reason I couldn't get the chevron background to print correctly on most of them (and of course I didn't find this out until working on them for hours).  They will print from Microsoft word, but not from a PDF file.  Unfortunately if you don't have the same fonts on your computer they won't look right if you try to print for word.  I tried changing up the background for you, but I still had problems.  So I decided to take out the background and print it on colored patterned paper (it is actually cheaper this way because it saves a lot of ink).  I picked up a package of 12 sheets of paper in the Valentine dollar section at Target:

Here are all your downloads and as always: 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!
 

Stick With Me - Pink

Stick with Me - Red

Mustache You a ? - Pink

Mustache You a ? - Pink & Purple

Mustache You a ? - Red

Disguise I'm glad we are friends - Pink

 Disguise I'm glad we are friends - Pink & Purple

 Disguise I'm glad we are friends - Red

Disguise - Be my Valentine - Pink

 Disguise - Be my Valentine - Pink & Purple

 Disguise - Be my Valentine -Red

Mustaches for the craft sticks

Craft Stick Saying 

If you have and questions, problems, or comments, leave me a message!

Here are a couple more downloads for the craft sticks:

I like you

I love you

Our Friendship

I'm out of magenta ink so I haven't printed all of these.  If there is a problem, let me know.  If I was selling them I would triple check everything, but since they are freebies I'm relying on you for feedback.

Scroll down for last year's Valentines.  That post also has a link to the Valentines made the year before!

I linked with

Skip to My Lou

I heart nap time

DIY Valentine's Gifts

I never posted the Valentine's gifts I made last year so in case you are looking for ideas here is what we did:
I made some salt dough (play dough) for my first grade class that I go into.  I dyed it red and I rolled it out.  Using a cookie cutter I cut it into heart shapes.  I put one heart into a snack size baggie (there was room that I could have put two in each bag) and stapled a Valentine's Topper over the zipper of the bag:

Actually, I cut out a topper out of cardstock, folded it over the bag, stapled.  Then printed off the saying onto regular paper and used a tape runner to place it over the cardstock.  That way you don't see any staples.

My youngest gave out hugs and kisses:

First I took some Valentine kisses and wrapped them in red saran wrap and tied it with valentine ribbon (don't cut the ribbon yet):

Slide on the tag:

And tie it around a Hug barrel drink (I bought them at Walmart):

Slide in the straw, trim your ribbon and you have a gift of Hugs and Kisses!

If you have the mini zip top bags that you can find in the craft store you can use those.  You can use those two ways: 1- fill with hugs and kisses OR 2- fill with kisses and attach to a hugs barrel drink (like above).  These are cute, but I didn't have enough left for the whole class.  I made these the same way as the dough. 

 
Last year owls were all the range and I incorporated them into my son's Valentine's.  His class didn't really do an exchange, but we made some anyway.  I had come across a great deal on scented pencils (a bucket of them) over the summer and bought them.  My kids loved them so I knew the 5th graders would too.  I used my cricut to cut out owl shapes (you could use clip art).  I had two ideas:

We ended up using the first one (click on the pictures to enlarge).  I cut out the owls and then printed the saying on labels and stuck them on the back.  We taped on the pencil towards the bottom - we wanted it to be like a branch.  The second idea was shaped more like a traditional valentine with the saying at the top and a branch at the bottom.  I cut slits into the paper to slide the pencil in on the branch.  Here is a close up of the saying - he didn't want it lovey dovey, he is a 10 year old boy (you could use valentine instead of friend, but he chose friend):

Download Dough Valentine Here

Download Hugs and Kisses Circles Here
Download Hugs and Kisses Toppers Here

Download Owl Label Here

Download Owl Card Here (no owl, just saying)

If you still need ideas check out this post for fun saying/tags or the post from the year before here.  You can view instructions/download tags for:

 

You could also use mini flashlights or glow sticks for this tag.

Linking up here: