Happy 100th Day!!!

Yay yay for 100th Day!!

I've built this up a LOT in the past few weeks, and luckily my mad party-planning skillz did not disappoint!

Let's go through the day chronologically!

First, we made 100th Day glasses. They were seriously obsessed with these. I could not stop laughing at them all day because they looked so silly! I got the template from the wonderful Jenn at Finally in First. Her 100th Day post from last year was actually the post that made me want to read everyone's blog and start my own!!!!! So it was fitting that I used a few of her ideas today!

I know, I know................ there are only 12 of them.

Next we made ourselves as 100 year olds! I was originally inspired again by Jenn but also by Jessica from Welcome to Room 36. I took the writing idea from someone and I can't remember who! Also I can't find who it is! So please tell me if you know. They had to write what they'd be able to do and what they wouldn't be able to do at age 100.

I will be able to watch as much TV as I want, but I will not be able to run.

I will be able to cook but I will not be able to run so fast.

I will be able to make macaroni and cheese but I will not be able to do backflips.

I will be able to go to work, but I will not be able to make grandmas out of paper.

The last one CRACKED ME UP! I was dying laughing. I guess she means because she won't be in school, she can't make herself as a 100 year old when she is 100. Haha!!!!!!!!! Also I'm guessing she was perplexed about why we were randomly "making grandmas out of paper." Haha! I am still dying now.

We read a super super cute book! The kids looooooooooooved it and it was fun to read! Also if you are desperate for 100th Day activities, this book mentions several for you to try out!

Later on, we counted out 100 fruit loops by 10s and made necklaces!

I didn't try this out before we did it together.... which was an issue. They could not get those fruit loops on the yarn!!! Thankfully, one of my first graders' moms had dropped in and suggested covering the end of the yarn with tape! OMG! I love you, mom of my student.

Later on, the technical party began! We had four stations. One was finishing the necklaces (haha), one was making a 100th day trail mix, one was rolling a die 100 times (which I got from Made for First Grade) and recording the numbers they got, and one was taking 100 steps and seeing where they ended up.

I also covered the door with streamers. Let me just say........... streamers are a kid magnet.

One last message to end this super long but super AWESOME post!

One of my second graders came to school and said, "It's the 100th day of school. Today is the day when boys become men and girls become women. I need to start thinking about getting engaged soon."

She said it very solemnly and I was beside myself. My kids can be a handful but they are hilarious!!

Our Christmas Party

Happy first day of Christmas break to me!

Yesterday was our party and it went off without a hitch! I am forever grateful to the teacher I worked with in the spring of 2010 who always organized her parties in stations. My typically energetic and loud kids are very well-behaved during our classroom parties because they are in small groups being supervised by a parent doing a fun activity. Hooray for stations!!

Here's what we did at our party.

Our first station was math bingo! My cousin, Kelley, is doing some of her observation hours in my class, and I was lucky enough to have her for the party! Her bingo cards were super cute. The kids rolled dice and added the numbers together, then covered up the answer.

Another station was making candy cane ornaments out of beads and pipe cleaners! This one was brought in by one of my room moms. She couldn't come to the party, so she sent her high school daughter instead. The word on the street was that she did NOT want to be at the party, but she hid it well and worked great with the kiddos!!

We also played Christmas Cover-Up, thanks to First Grade Garden. This was actually pretty similar to the Christmas bingo game, but none of the kids seemed to notice... They would roll the foam dice and add up the numbers, then cover up their answers. Apparently no one won this game in any of the rotations. Oh wells!

And our last station was two-in-one. First, we made magic reindeer food out of oatmeal and glitter. I used the tags found here. The reindeer clip art is a little weird-looking, but we don't have a color printer at school and I didn't want to use a ton of ink. Because this took a total of 2 seconds to scoop out some reindeer food, I also gave them something fun - a Christmas crypto-code puzzle from Super Teacher Worksheets. They love decoding these things, and it was a little brain break during the party.

After the stations were finished, it was food and present time!

I wanted to have a breakfast party, since we only had a half day. So we had a fruit tray, mini bagels with cream cheese, and apple and orange juice. So delicious and pretty nutricious! And, this is really shocking, NO ONE brought cupcakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy, especially after the four sets of cupcakes at Halloween.

Here's a closeup of the beautiful fruit tray. Sadly, by the time I got to it, the strawberries were long gone. :(

And then we handed out gifts. These were the gift bags I gave my kids. Inside was a Scholastic book that I picked out for each kid specifically and a Smencil, which they LOVED! The bags say "Jesus loves you snow much." Oriental Trading sent these bags to my mom's work as a Christmas gift or something, but she works at a speech/occupational therapy center, so they couldn't really use them. So I really lucked into these bags! And they held all of the kids' stuff pretty well.

A few kids brought in goody bags for the other kids. They had candy or little toys or games inside. It was really sweet! But kind of a crazy mess. They loved it though. And look! Someone got Pete the Cat for Christmas!! :)

I got some sweet gifts too! I got a Thirty-One Organizing Utility Tote that looks just like this! Mine is downstairs so I borrowed this picture from Mommy of Two Little Monkeys. Mine says "A+ Teacher" in pink!!

I also got a super cute snowman treat dish! I am in love with this thing because I have none of my own Christmas decorations. When I move out someday, I am going to have the saddest house at Christmas time. Now it will be a little more jolly!!!!

I am very thankful this Christmas for having a job, teaching twelve little people that make me laugh every day, and having awesome room moms and the best future-teacher-cousin ever to make my Christmas party a smashing success!!!

Party Time!

As I said on Facebook earlier today - I've never had a wedding, but I imagine that this Halloween party was pretty close. By that I mean that I planned forever for it, I hardly ate anything, and it went by in a flash!!

Today was my first ever Halloween classroom party. The only time I've been in the classroom for Halloween was 3 years ago during a clinical in college, so it was a whole new world for me today! I wasn't sure how much room parent help I'd have, so I planned everything but the craft.

I ended up having two parent helpers and one grandparent helper (two of which I wasn't expecting) and so everything was incredibly under control.

We did four stations. The first one was my room parent's craft that she thought of and brought everything in for (yay!). The kids decorated oranges like pumpkins with frosting. They also put a green pipe cleaner in the top to be the stem. They loved it! And tomorrow when the frosting has dried, we will have a delicious treat!

The second station was pumpkin playdough! My kids LOVE playdough, as you may remember from the first day of school, so I thought they'd like this. I got the idea for the pumpkin version from this post at Frogs, Bees, and Under the Seas. The kids loved that it smelled like pumpkin. And they were SO EXCITED when I said that they could take home their playdough balls.

The third station was the Tricks and Treats game I got from Mrs. Bainbridge. This was another hit! One of my room parents ran this game so I did not see firsthand how well it worked but when I came around to tell everyone to switch stations, everyone leaving that station was beaming. I think it was the candy. :)

And last, we did the Jumping Like a Spider activity from The Wise and Witty Teacher. We weren't able to get through all of it (because the other stations went so fast thanks to my awesome helpers) but I think it was good for the kids to get up and jump around for a while! I found out that I have some future Olympic long jumpers in my room!!

And let me tell you about the food situation. My one room mom had been talking to me and she said that she was going to bring mostly healthy food and one treat. I said, "Great!" It was surprising to me when, this morning, I had THREE students bring in cupcakes. Three!!!!!! Way too many cupcakes, people!!! Luckily, my room mom brought tons of good food to make up for it (I hope). I just wanted to eat the whole table!!

And how about that steamy punch??? That was definitely a highlight. Yay room moms!!

One last picture - we have a set of three siblings at school, and one's in my room. They all brought super cute and creative cupcakes. Here is my student's cupcakes!

I wish I could show you all the cute costumes! I had a few Batwomen, police officers, and butterflies. I also had an AWESOME Cleopatra, complete with heavy makeup! Loved it.

So I survived my first party! And I'll definitely do party stations like that again in the future. :) How was your Halloween?