The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I'm home on a Friday morning!
Spring Break is next week but I'm fortunate to be off for Good Friday, too!
We made the cutest, most colorful Napkin Books this week!
It all starts with an inexpensive package of luncheon napkins. I created a very basic set of pages featuring color words and Easter egg clip art. I sized the pages to easily fit inside the 6x6 napkins. Print the pages and just staple along the closed side of the napkin to create your Napkin Book. Be sure to pick up a package or two of pretty seasonal napkins on sale AFTER the holiday for next year's class!
We were fortunate to have beautiful sunny skies for our class Easter Egg Hunt!
Actually, we were fortunate the egg "hiders" and parents could rearrange their schedules for our hunt to be rescheduled due to a very rainy, stormy forecast.
I like for the class to play a game when finding their eggs. It eliminates the intensity of the hunt being a free-for-all race to find the most eggs or to find them faster than everyone else.
For the past several years, I've had each child bring in twelve plastic eggs filled with a treat. Instead of using baskets for the eggs, each child has an egg carton to hold their bounty. Before the day of the egg hunt, I label the egg cartons by spelling H-A-P-P-Y E-A-S-T-E-R. One letter is written in each egg compartment leaving one blank for the space between the words.
The eggs are also labeled ahead of time with these letters. So, for each dozen eggs, you end up with eleven eggs that have letters and one blank egg (for the space between the words).
For the hunt, each child finds the letters they need to spell H-A-P-P-Y E-A-S-T-E-R. If a child has already found an egg with the letter T on it, they don't need to find another. But if they do, they just place it back where they found it for another friend who needs that letter. This method of hunting works really great! It's more challenging than just picking up random eggs to fill your basket. And one added benefit is watching students help their friends who are searching for one particular letter!
Here's our April door display! Each student was given construction paper and access to an art tray filled with tiny pom poms, cupcake liners, spring colored crepe paper, and BINGO dot markers. The directions? Make a flower for the door! It turned out more beautiful than I envisioned!
I added several new math centers to the shelves so we'll be ready for our Insect unit right after Spring Break. My kids love to play Count & Clip games and this one features ladybugs and reviewing sets 1-20. I'm sure it will be a favorite as we learn about ladybugs.
There's also a math basket filled with ladybug counters (lima beans spray-painted RED and ladybug details added with a black Sharpie) to use for counting sets on our ladybug plates (cheap RED paper plates with black circles Mod-Podged on them).
My family is heading to the South Carolina coast for Spring Break. It's not an ideal weather forecast but at least I can put my toes in the sand and have plenty of time for family fun and a little relaxation!
Be sure to visit Doodle Bugs Teaching for this week's Five for Friday!
