Christmas Treats for all

Christmas, by far is my favorite holiday.  I love everything about Christmas.  The colors, presents, candies, all the decorations, but most of all the mood and attitude of the people. I like it that people smile more and are more giving.  It makes me an all around better person as well.  Anyways, I wanted to share  some little craft projects that I did for my wonderful students on the last week of school before winter break.  As I said before, they threw me a surprise birthday party last month.  So I wanted to do something as equally nice for them.  I came up with - giving them a little gift everyday of the week.  Here it is....

Monday- Snowman Pretzal

You find these cute little Christmas tags HERE.

Yummy chocolate covered pretzels. 

I had a great time making these little snowman pouches.  It's very easy to make, but it took a few days because I made about 45 of them.  You can see a youtube video on how to make one HERE!  She said to use a certain size envelope, which I don't have so I substituted with a regular No. 9.  Cut the envelope in half to make two snowman.  Just cut it at 41/2 inches in from both ends so the snowman's head will still look proportioned.

I wrapped up the pretzels in a cellophane bag and then stuffed it inside the envelope.  The cello bags were cheap.  40 for $1.00 at $tree.  Best deal ever! I bought like 5 packs.  I plan on doing more chocolate coverd yummies.  They aren't  the usual pretzal stick cellophane bags.  The size was about 4X6, but it fit my smaller pretzals perfectly.  I actually went looking for the regular sized pretzal sticks and didn't find any at Walmart.  So, I bought a smaller sized pretzal pack to practice on and I couldn't be more happier.  Everything just worked out great. 

Tuesday - S'more Love for You

Saw this picture on Pinterest.  Loved it!  Thought it was a cute and simple little gift that I could do.  So I did.  I forgot to take pictures of mine after bagging them all up.  Below is the tag I made to go with the yummy stuff.  It's saved as a PDF, so you could right click and save as if you want it.  I just used one of my circle punchers to punch out the tag.  

Wednesday- Candy in Pouch

All I did was cut strips of papers (big enough for the fun size chocolate candy bars and Pixy Stix) to fit inside.  Fold the the paper and glue the sides.

Thursday - Hygiene Pack

 I teach 5th graders, so good hygiene is really important.  They're at the beginning of their growing years.  I started the day with a  hygiene lesson.  Explained the importance of staying clean and healthy.  We also watched a great video and sang a song from United Streaming Videos.   At the end of the day, they reviewed all that they learned and then I passed out the gift.  My sister in law is really good at couponing.  So, I asked her if she could donate some stuff.  She bought everything for all of my students (Thanks Patty!). They really liked it. 

Friday- Hot Cocoa

Just put a packet of hot chocolate, some marshmellows, a candy cane, a straw (optional) in a cup and bag it up.  Tie the sweet hot cocoa poem on it and voila!  Below is a copy of one of the poems I made.

There you have it.  I had a lot of fun making these little gifts.  My students are very sweet and deserved it.



Birthday Party

My awesome students threw me a surprise birthday party! They recruited other teachers to keep me occupy while they decorate the classroom with streamers and balloons during lunch.  A few of the students took charge and planned the whole thing.  It was so beautiful.  I am a lucky woman.

You’ve Been Booed!

I love doing this.  Cant’ wait for it every year.  If you have never been booed - Here’s the scoop.  If you’re the first person to start- all you have to do is print out the two papers below (a poem about being booed on Halloween and the direction on what to do next).  Grab some goodies and secretly give it to a friend, neighbor, or co-worker.  This will spread quickly and soon enough everyone will have gotten a treat.  If you like to be creative – instead of just printing the directions and poem on plain, boring, white paper.  You could print it on fun festive Halloween papers, stamp Halloween stuff all over your white papers, or even  make it into a card and then send it off.  This year I retyped it to fit in a card I made. 

I upload the documents if you wanted to make it fancy yourself or you could use a few I made (for personal use only please).  Just click the picture to enlarge it.  Save as and print.  Enjoy!

Twilight! Twilight! Twilight!

For the last 3 years I've read Twilight with my students (after CST testing of course). Every year I get so excited and can't wait for my students to enjoy the book as I do. It all started when another teacher from my school (who was also in love the the Twilight series) wanted to incoporate the book into her classroom as part of her reading component. When I heard of this, I begged the principal to allow me to do it too. Oh, I was sooo happy. Thanks to Nou, we sat down and planned wonderful Twilight themed lessons. We used mainly GLAD strategies. Which is all about student motivation and engagement. There were chants, poems, big books and many more. The best part was having a Twilight movie party at the end. So much fun! We also made t-shirts with ironed on pictures of the actors for every student. Below are some pictures from this years Twilight Party in May.

A friend of mine did the awesomely disgusting vampire blood on the cupcakes (thanks Xee).  Below is a scrapbook mini I did to give away as a prize to an excellent student, who participated throughout the whole thing and scored high on all tests/quizes.

I liked this mini so much that I had to make myself one as well.

Below is a Twilight banner I hung in the classroom.

 

Fun folding mini

This is just a fun folding mini that one of my co-worker shared with me a while back.  It was just before Christmas.  So, of course, I made a few little Christmas gifts.  It's a very fast and fun project to make.  It only takes three cardstock papers and some folding.