Daddy Daughter dance and 2 full tummies

I probably should have titled this posted Throwback Thursday... or Monday... if you're a stickler like that.  I feel like some days I'm just working triage.  I put out one fire and then another and then get some kids to soccer, or track... or baseball... or play practice.  Then someone always thinks we should have dinner and then there's that too. 

But never mind that.  This throwback Monday is in attempts to get a bit caught up here before summer comes.  We seriously have like 33 days of school left.  Praise the Lord.  

Dear hubby took Bee to a daddy daughter dance this Valentine's day at our church.  It was our church's first time and it was a great success.  The dads all took their little sweet peas out to dinner and then to the church for dancing, candy, and I'm sure general shenanigans. 

Bee picked out this dress and it was a bit of a compromise.  It wasn't little-girl enough for me, but she liked it and goodness gracious- she'll be in middle school next year!  She had to throw on a sweater of mine at the last minute, as it was a chilly evening.  She's taken over my favorite red sweater, but the thought that we could share some clothes soon is intriguing! She's more trending than I am and that might not be a bad deal for me occasionally.  

Daddy and Bee went to her favorite pizza place in town and met up with some other and dancing dad couples.  Lou said he wanted to take me out for dinner too.   He wanted buffet and I wanted sushi so we ended up at a new-to-us China buffet in town that some students have recommend.  Oh dear!  Gluttony Buffet should have been the name of it.  There was so much food and it was all amazing (plus I've been eating so healthy for months- it was all so fried and fatty- pretty much the best food I'd ever eaten).  We ate and ate and then ate some more and then had ice-cream.  When the bill came we giggled because Lou is still well within the age for the children's price but he said, "Did they not see how much I ate?"  We got out of there for $15!    I think we paid for it the next day though as we were both feeling a bit yuck the entire day.   My sweet kids wanted to take me out to my favorite restaurant the next day for my birthday so there was more food- I think I could have gone without eating the rest of the weekend! 

If I get to it, tomorrow can be throwback Tuesday.  And then Wednesday. And then by Thursday I'll be following the rules of the throwback. 

Back to Valentine's Day

It's a snow day here, so I have a few extra minutes (while taking a break from sledding and sewing costumes) to post about Valentine's Day in my classroom. 

 

I saw this idea on Pinterest and wanted to use it for Valentines for the kiddos to give to their parents.  Early in the week, I photographed them in from of this paper and printed out 2 for each student. 

At the party, one station was to come work with me and personalize them. 

They just used sharpie and wrote directly on the blank space.   I had them put the cards in envelopes.  This may be my favorite:

I know her parents are lovely, kind people, so no worries there.

One station was decorating and eating cookies.

Another was a game, which I'm not really sure what it was.  One of the moms planned it and I was at my table and didn't get to go investigate.

One station was passing out the valentines.  The kids decorated their boxes at home and we had a little friendly competition that morning.  Here's one of my favorites!  The opening was his mouth and the kids all thought it was funny to leave their valentines half hanging out.

Another station made this great craft.  The kids pressed little pins into foam board and then added string to make pretty string art.  The mom who organized this craft had drawn the heart shape on lightly with pencil.

Bee's class made these adorable coasters as their craft and gift to parents.

Who knew that Valentines was such a give-your-teacher-candy holiday, but I sure got spoiled.  Here's my haul.  Seriously.  The flowers are from hubby for my birthday.

Here are a few fun valentines the kids and I brought home from their friends.

 

I'll be buying bigger pants!

Valentines

Last day of Valentines Day in April.

Here are some fun valentines we gave or got this year.

Here's Bees.  I used the 'print to cut' feature on the silhouette (because it's an awesome machine) to make and cut out scalloped cards.  It's an image that I purchased through the silhouette online shop.  It was in a group of 4 different scalloped shapes. I think the shapes will get used plenty.  We made up friendship bracelets for all the kids in her class.  There are only 13 kids total.  (Can you image teaching only 13!)

We attempted a new type of friendship bracelet.  You make a wheel out of something sturdy with 8 slits.  7 strings are laced through with 1 empty slot.  There is a whole in the middle for the work to pass through. The second string back from the blank gets brought up to the empty spot.  Repeat.  A million times.

The stitching was really cool.

But time consuming for even just 13 bracelets.  Here are some better directions for that type.  We ended up going with the way we used to make them at camp. Fast and cool enough.  I'll have to doing something with a tutorial for that in the summer.

Here are Lou's valentines.  I printed them free here at Sweet Muffin Suite.  Lou and Bee both stamped their valentines with little name stampers I ordered from Pick Your Plum.
 

I mentioned this one already, but we mailed a bottle of paper hearts and other little goodies to a buddy for Valentine's Day.

Here are some cute Valentines either I got from preschool friends or the kids got from their school parties.  Our neighborhood school does not celebrate Valentines day with treats and valentines.  How sad.

 

That's it for Valentines day.  For this year.  Promise.

valentines table activies- preschool style

We're looking at more valentines day things today.  In April.  We're running the air conditioner at this house today. 

So here are a few things from the preschool tables. 

I had out these heart erasers and little heart shaped containers.  The kids poured and closed up containers and shook them, and opened containers and dumped them out and did it again and again.  I think the containers and erasers are from the Target dollar section in years past.

I mentioned these missing number activity last year, they are from Musings of Me. They used to be a free download, but are now part of a bigger Valentines Day pack available in her TPT store.

The sensory box was random pink, purple, and white pom poms and feathers.  This class particularly likes the sensory boxes.  They're all about pouring the beans.

We left out various little paper hearts to color.  They came in handy as we had to make some last minute valentines for a friend who forgot on party day.   The kiddos made pretty hearts for their parents for a whole week.   The are available to print for free here at Creative Classroom.

This poor Valentines bingo is several years old and had been played at both Bee and Lou's parties as well as in my classroom.  I think we did play it whole class one day, but in the mornings, they just covered up the calling pieces with a bingo board.

Every year a few friends bring me chocolates in tins for valentines day.  I devour them happily.  Lou usually helps.  Bee's too picky for the unknown.  Some were set out with old conversation hearts and tweezers for a transferring activity.

A few others were set out with chocolate scented play dough.  We used coco powder to flavor the play dough which was made using this recipe.   The kids made the play dough into chocolates and placed them in the little dividers. 

Kids used their hands to work on this one-to-one correspondence activity. Previous years, we've played this with rolling a dice.

These pieces were also just set out for filling containers and closing and opening them.  I had so many of the big heart containers and was just glad that I found something to use them with.

Think were' done with valentines day... think again. 

valentines party- scond grade style

Yep, I'm talking about Valentines Day.  We had a lovely warm weekend (umm... April weekend), and I feel so far behind with the backlog of items to blog.  It's all because of the computer crash in February.

 

So we're looking at Bee's second grade Valentines Day party.  I got to help work it with another fun mom I've known for the whole time we've lived here.  We went with a 'minute to win it' theme.  The kids had a great time.  The party moved quickly and everyone was thoroughly entertained.

 

We did several games. One was the cup stack.  Apparently this friend had practiced.  We divided the kids into 4 teams so that everyone had lots of turns. He couldn't wait to be the representative for his team in the cup stacking event.  The kids had to stack 36 cups in a pyramid.  They had of course, 1 minute to do this.  He got close, but no one got it.

Here's Bee in the next event.  The four teams were each given a full tissue box.  One group member held it still and another pulled the tissues out one at a time. 

She won this for her group, although I think another group made it too and we gave them both points.

This one was the funniest.  Empty Kleenex boxes had been attached to belts.  The boxes had about 20 ping pong balls inside.  The kids put on the belts and then with one minute, tried to shake all the balls out.  Funny stuff.  I think all groups made it and all got a point.  But we laughed so hard!

We did a marshmallow toss. Just a simple, one player tossed marshmallows in a little container.  I think we had a number set to earn the point, but ended up just giving it to the team with the most.  It was a little harder than we though.  We used heart shaped marshmallows of course.

This was fun too.  One kid from each team put a tongue depressor in his mouth and then added conversation hearts in a stack to the edge of the stick.  Talk about cross eyed!  I think we said to get five for the point, but four was the most any player stacked.   

The best part of this one was that I used the old old candies from my preschool game stash for the game. In fact, I had to throw the white ones out because they turned a musty green color.  We told the kids up front that they were old, played with, germ covered and not to be eaten.  No problem.  One of the moms walked in late and apparently missed that message.  The candies were still laying on the table and she was munching away on them!  I ran over and said that the candies were so gross and not to eat them, and she said, "Oh no, I think conversation hearts are so good!"  Then took another handful.  I quickly explained what I meant by gross... preschool game pieces... little hands gross.  She didn't seem too freaked out, but didn't eat anymore.  We all had a good giggle.

We didn't get to this game.  It would have been a funny one too.  One kid from each team was to put a little dollop of Vaseline on their nose and then try to transfer as many cotton balls as they could from one bowl to another in the minute.  We'll save it for next year.

We also worked on this craft.  We had it set up at three different tables and they worked on each part at a different station. I handed each child a sturdy plastic plate with their name.  This way they could work in any order and just carry their pieces around to the different stations.  One table was decorating the pots.  The kids used white glue to attach tissue paper to the sides of a terra cotta pot.  Another table was adding a little loose crinkly paper filler and wrapping a gladiolas bulb in a coffee filter and tying it closed with a ribbon.   (I looked on the bulb bag to see how to spell gladiolis... it had an i.... now spell checker is saying it's an a at the end....Bee's teacher probably thinks I'm a moron. )

The last station had shortened shish kabob sticks. scraps of fabric, and precut paper toppers.  The kids assembled sticks to decorate their plant.   I printed and cut all the pieces with my silhouette.  It was fun to finally figure out the 'print to cut' option. 

Last year, with roughly the same group of kids, we did watercolor art at the Valentines party and the year before, we played some of these games.
Think this is the last of the valentines posts in April... nope.