Fun in the Classroom

Hello friends! Sorry about the posting delay today, it has been a busy one as we prepare for our Easter Holiday. I just wanted to share some fun things that we have going on in class this past week. I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy the time you have with your family and friends.

Use a small craft stick to make a spacer for beginning writers. It helps them with keeping their writing neat and clean. These little sticks allow my youngest to slow down while he is writing and notice his spacing but also his writing is cleaner when he stops every word. 

Use your hole punches and colorful paper for the pattern play center of your classroom. These are colorful and fun for making patterns and just general crafting too. The kids love to create their own punches and some even make it to confetti! 

With all the remodeling of the house that we have going on, there were a lot of paint strips leftover! These are perfect for making bookmarks for the Book Exchange Party! We are making some for boys and girls. 

More paint chips helped us make a fun Sight Word Memory Game! I have 80 cards with 40 words on them and 5 black BOOM cards. The idea is to flip a card and say the word, spell the word  and then try again. If you get the match you keep it. If you flip a BOOM card, you lose all your matches. This game has been a lot of fun to play for all the kids, even my big readers! 

In an effort to make all my daily stapling a bit easier on the eyes, I took a permanent marker to my staples. It's amazing how cute it looks and it really does brighten up the page. A silly little update but one that was fun anyway. 

Reluctant writers need to be encouraged in a variety of ways. I change up the writing center often and that always helps attract them back. Change up the types, colors and shapes of paper along with the writing instrument and you will notice that even the most shy of writers will head in to check it out!!

Enjoy every minute!

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Book Page Table Runner

It's FRIDAY! It's FEBRUARY! Time to get my act together. Here is another Free Book Project! We made a book page table runner as decor for our book exchange party. This one was so easy and has the most impact. It's wonderful. We plan on tea staining it in the near future but for now, it's beautiful. 

As I stated last, a free book goes a long way! This book was old and already had lost pages and many loose pages hanging out. As much as it hurts to do this to a book, I knew this one was destined for the trash as it was missing too much but I knew this would extend its life a little more. 

This project is so easy, even the Littles got involved. All we needed was a roll of craft paper cut to length, torn pages and a glue stick! Once your Kraft paper is all cut out, just have the kids start gluing. The reason this is so perfect for children is that they do not have to be glued on in any order or direction AT ALL! Just glue and pat down. 

When we were finished I laid it all out on the floor and had the children walk all over it, hop all over it and even sit on it to make sure the pages laid flat and stayed secure on the paper. 

We put it on our dining room table to see how it looks and it's perfect!!! I cannot wait to see it out as decoration for our party. So much fun and excitement with all these new projects that one little book can make.

I still have more projects to post, I have just had a sick Little at home and he is passing it through the family. One day, I hope we will all be healthy at the same time!!!

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DIY Garland Fun!

Hello readers! What a day we have had in the crafting universe yesterday. I am in the process of planning a book exchange party! This week, I will post about the fun things the kids and I have been able to create using simple pages from a book! This truly killed me to do to a book but in the end I didn't feel as bad when I found this tattered book that was already falling apart. 

Our Library has a Used Book store where they sell their discarded books, when they have some that are too damaged, those books go into a crate that is all just given away. I happened to come across this beauty in that crate and realized that it would be perfect to begin making the decor for our Book Exchange Party.

These next jobs are absolutely perfect for the Littles. We snagged our basket of hole punches and set up on the couch of the living room in a chain! Roman pulled the pages out of the book, Gabriel and Autumn took turns punching them with different punches and Mommy did the sewing.

Everyone had their jobs and we worked while chattering on about the day. It was a nice and casual way to spend the evening and the best part is, that it turned out into something totally awesome that they can be proud to say they made!

The round ones were going to be our Garland. We plan on making loads more of these in order to decorate the 'book room'. This garland is so easy to make and it goes quickly when you are having fun! A needle and thread is all you need to get it going. The length of the thread doesn't matter because you can just stitch multiple ones together in order to make it longer. 

A simple stitch just goes right into each  circle linking one to the other as you thread it through and pull it down the length of thread.

You can leave them few and far between or group them together closely as I have in the top photo where the garland rests on my fireplace mantle for now.

The other punched pages will become confetti and table scatter to just place wherever we feel, this is such an easy job to get children involved!

As the week progresses, I will share the other activities I have for us to make together and all from using 1 free book!!! We will be making a table runner, popcorn bags, mini book decorations and so much more. Have you ever hosted a book exchange party? I plan on sharing all the steps leading up to my party and then the actual party as well. This will be a fiesta for both children and adults to come, enjoy and exchange. We will have word games and appetizers.

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