Rainbows for St. Patrick's Day

In preparation for the coming of Leprechauns we of course had to make some rainbows. Everyone knows how much those little green fellows love rainbows.

For these rainbows we used large butcher paper, tempera paint, and race cars. Older students made the traditional rainbow shape while our younger children made their unique version of a rainbow print. As we promote freedom of art expression, all children had the opportunity to their rainbow just they way they wanted to.

Valentine's Day 2013

First there were the pre-party preparations. The children were very busy all morning baking, decorating, and setting up.

 

 

Then, there was the Valentine's Day party!

 

And the birthday cake celebrating the age of 4 and the friendship between children.

 

 

And the notes passed out to each of their classmates.

 

Such a fun day of friendship, sharing, and love!

Gingerbread Party 2012

The holidays wouldn't have been complete without frosted graham crackers covered in every kind of treat imaginable. In the week before Christmas, we celebrated with our annual Gingerbread Party!   Using small milk cartons as the base, children and parents added treats to make their own gingerbread house.

Thanks to the parents who filled our bowls with candy, from chocolate, to marshmallows and lollipops! Families worked their way through the candy buffet and snacked on some yummy, healthier alternatives as well.

Did I mention the lollipops?

The completed houses were temporarily left to set . . .

. . .as the children were eager to play outside and expend some energy on the playground.

Thank you to all who came and participated! Until next year . . .

Love

The first 14 days of February were all about love. Here are some of the love and heart inspired projects we did.

Potato Print

We cut potatoes into heart shapes and then had the children stamp with red, pink, and purple tempera paint.

3-D Hanging Hearts

After the students decorated construction paper hearts with tissue paper scraps, we glued 3 of the heart together. This made a nice 3-D heart decoration.

Stained Glass

We cut a heart shape out of 2 pieces of construction paper (front and back) to make the frame. One of the frames was placed onto wax paper and liquid starch was painted inside the heart shape as well as on the edges of the heart cutout. Students overlapped pink, red, and white pieces of tissue paper to create the stained glass effect. Once the starch dried, the frame was carefully peeled off and the backing was added.

Valentine's Day Collage

Valentine's Day Bags

Each student decorated a white lunch with markers, heart shapes, and stickers.

Valentine's Day Cooking Project

For our special holiday cooking project we made heart shaped pizzas! In the morning the students helped to make the pizza dough from scratch. Once it was done rising they shaped their dough into heart shapes. Homemade pizza sauce, cheese, and mini-peperoni was added by each student.

We labeled each pizza with a slip of wax paper and popped them into the oven for 5 minutes to bake. Here is what they looked like before the students ate them. It was a very yummy lunch made with lots of love.

Our Valentines bags all filled up with love notes and sweet treats.

'V' is for Vase

We learned a lot about the letter V during Valentine's Day week, especially since it just happened to be the letter of the week. Here was our creative way to make a vase full of flowers using the letter.

Gingerbread House Party

What better type of Christmas party for children than a buffet of candy and frosting made out of sugar! With the help from parents, each student was able to build their house using a standard school lunch size milk carton, graham crackers, and homemade royal icing that acts like glue. Once the structure was set in place, candy was then added for decoration.

The self-serve candy station. Families donated all sorts of candy. We used individual bowls for each child to hold their candy selection and a spoon for them to scoop the loose candy with.

First the roof and walls were placed on using icing.

Then the edges were frosted to help support the structure.

Then the candy was added!

We used sandwich sized zip lock bags filled with royal icing as piping bags. Just a tiny  little cut in the corner does the trick.

Older students learned about squeezing out their own icing.

Younger students enjoyed adding the candy pieces.

Of course what Christmas party wouldn't be complete without hot coco and snacks.

Some of the finished houses.

The Gingerbread Man

During the month of December we spend a week reading "The Gingerbread Man" story and have a few fun activities that go along with the book.

We take time to finger paint a gingerbread man cut out.

We make a really really BIG gingerbread man of our own using gingerbread cookie dough. Its hard to make one free form so a shape is traced onto parchment paper and we work on pressing the dough inside the lines.

After all the dough is pressed in we add a few decorations for his eye, nose, and buttons. Then into the oven he goes.

It took a long time for him to bake and he was starting to smell really good. So naturally we checked on him. When we opened the oven door we were shocked to see that he was gone!

After following the flour trail he left all over the school, we finally found him out back playing near the sandbox. He was 'chilling' out and having some fun.

We quickly caught him and brought him inside.

He didn't put up to much of a fight and was a really yummy snack.

Since it was so much fun catching the gingerbread man, we decided it would be nice to make a hat with him on it.

Now we can pretend to be a gingerbread man too.