Mother's Day Card Idea for Kids plus Free Printables

Mother's Day is fast approaching and we're just finishing up our cards and gifts.

I always breathe a sigh of relief when we've got every mom covered!  Especially for the kids who are often away!

This year we went with a bit of a "mom is a queen" theme.

Because, let's face it, moms are like queens! :)

Today I'll show you the cards we made.  

The gifts, I'll have to feature in a separate post.  

(I'm still missing a photo or two!)  

You'll see the queens in our cards have different hair colours - each colour carefully chosen to look just like mom's! :)

Moms with black hair....

Moms with brown hair....

Moms with blonde hair....

And yes, I'll admit the poor blonde moms got a bit ripped off.  

There was no yellow yarn as expected and so they got some dry, brittle straw hair!

But hey, highlights can do some pretty harsh things to one's hair so maybe there's a bit of truth to the look. :) (Spoken by one who knows!)

The inside of the card featured this message.

To make the cards, the kids were all given images of a face  and a crown to glue to the front of the card.

I knew it would be hard for the kids to colour the face and the crown (we don't even own "skin coloured" felts) so I printed the crown on yellow paper, the face on skin coloured paper, and the cards' message on pink paper.

The kids glued these pieces to the center of the card, then used a marker to draw on the facial features.  

Last, they glued on the hair, jewels, and sparkles.

We used cardstock paper to help support all of the jewels. 

 The card would just flop over if it was made out of regular paper.   

If you'd like to make a similar card for Mother's Day, I have posted the crown, face, and card message for you HERE.

Watch for our Mother's Day gift idea coming next!

  

Bakery Dramatic Play Center for Preschool or Kindergarten

Our kids love dramatic play activities and we try to introduce a new center every month or two.

This week our theme has been BAKERY and it has definitely been one of their favourites.   

The kids took turns assuming the different roles at the bakery - namely, the customer, the baker, the cashier, or the clerk.

We used this wipeable form and a dry erase marker for the customer's order.

Either the customer filled out his order on the form, or when we had two clerks, one would fill out the form and the other clerk would fill the order.

The order would be placed in one of the take out bags or on a paper plate if the customer was "eating in."   

We left some money in a basket by the till that the customer could use to pay the cashier.

It was always interesting to see how much the cashier would charge.
  One cashier announced the cost of two cookies was $900!!  A little steep, but the customer seemed happy to pay it!

Below you can see our bakers in the kitchen working hard to keep the store stocked.

We had a variety of equipment and ingredients, each with its own label.  
Here is a sample of some of the items.

After the bakers added all the ingredients to a bowl, they'd mix it up, then pop the cookies in the oven to bake.

A close up of the baked goods can be seen below.  
They look pretty yummy, no?  

All these baked items were laminated for durability and then I used a glue gun to back them with foam paper.
This made them thicker and easier for the kids' little fingers to pick up.

The awesome repeat customers were rewarded with a FREE cookie or FREE donut card for their next visit.

Some days we change up the bakery center and we let the bakers make the cookies and other treats out of playdough.  
We use our bakery playdough mats for this.

We have a mat for cookies, donuts, cupcakes, a plate mat, and then a cooling rack mat, as well.

The bonus of the mats is that set up and take down of the bakery is quick and easy. 
 And the mats are easy to store, too!

Would you like to set up your own bakery?
All the items you see in the photos, plus many more signs, labels, and 3 game ideas are included in my Bakery Dramatic Play Set in my Teach Easy Resources Store.  

Just $3.95 for the pack!
Cookie, anyone?

   

  

Coffee Filter Umbrella Craft for Spring

Now that it's March we decided it was high time we take down our Snowman Bulletin Board!

We never did get any snow this year, but we did get lots of RAIN.

And as the rain continues, we decided to make coffee filter UMBRELLAS the "stuff" of our new display!

 We started with a large coffee filter.

Then we folded it in half and wrote the student's name on it in pen.    

Next, we used a dropper to add spots of colour all over the filter, trying to cover it so that no white was showing.

We used ice trays to hold the colours, which were made from water mixed with food colouring.  

We also made sure to have the kids wear paint smocks. 

As you probably know, food colouring is almost impossible to remove from clothing!

We laid the filters to dry on a tray.

When they were dry, we added a pipe cleaner handle.

We'll be stapling some of the umbrellas onto our bulletin board display, the rest we taped to our classroom windows!

It's starting to feel a little more like spring already!

Spring Songs and Activity Ideas for Preschool and Kindergarten

I can once again hear the birds chirping like crazy in the morning.  

I'm so happy to hear that sound!

Despite the rain and gloom we've had this week, spring must be on its way!

So this weekend I pulled out my favourite Spring songs and activities to get ready!

One of my favourite go-to songs for spring is my Baking a Pie song.  

My daughter filmed me performing this song a summer or two ago.  

  It actually took about 5 tries to get a version that was acceptable to post.  

Between the dog barking, the dog begging me to throw his ball, the dog running into the picture...let's just say it was a bit more challenging than expected!  

Here's the culprit!  

But anyway, I'm not too proud to share my video 

 here with you. 

(By the way, my voice is not really that high in person...   

 I was just trying to "be the crow."  :))

This song has been a big hit in my classroom.  

It's unique, has a quirky ending, and the kids can learn it quickly due to the repetition. 

The words and puppets for "Baking a Pie" are included in my Spring Unit along with 10 additional activities for

 Centre Time and Circle Time.

Below is a sample of four more of the 11 items in the unit.  The details of how each item works is written on the images.

And my Froggy Fish 'n Match Number Game!

You could set up this fishing game on a table on days when you want to keep life simple, but if you want to add another element of fun, on some days you could also create a little "fishing hole" as you'll see in the post HERE.  

If you're in a part of the world where spring hasn't hit yet, just hang on.  It's comin'!

And if you want some more fun activities for the season, check out my full Spring Unit for Pre-K and K in my shop!  

It includes the 5 activities shown in this post plus 6 more! 
Click HERE. 

 If you don't want to miss any ideas and freebies from Teach Easy Resources Blog,

 click on the Subscribe button on the right margin of this blog!   

Catchin' Frogs and Learnin' Numbers - A fun activity for Center Time!

As a kid I always loved pretending to "fish" at the annual school fair.  

Do you remember those fishing booths at the fair? 

There'd be a big wall that you'd have to cast your fishing line over and then someone on the other side of the wall would attach a prize for you to "reel" in.   

I always found that station so exciting!

My enjoyment of this activity as a kid spurs me to set up at least one fishing game for my class every spring.  

Last year, the activity ended up being fishing for frogs in a pond.

I created the station by flipping one of our tables on its side and then decorating it to look like a pond.  

 A blue tablecloth would have been preferable, but I thought I'd work with what I hand on hand!

The fishing ROD is created from a paint stir stick.  
The fishing LINE was created by twisting a series of pipe cleaners together.  (Long ago I learned the perils of using a string or yarn fishing line.  You spend most of the class trying to untangle it!)     

At the end of the fishing line, I looped the pipe cleaner through a clothespin to form the HOOK.  

Here's a photo of the clothespin "hook."
  Sorry I don't have a better photo of the full rod, but I'm sure you get the idea!

To play the game, students cast their fishing line over the table.

The children on the other side of the table attach the clothespin to one of the frogs.  

When the frog is attached, the children behind the table tug on the line to let the fisher boy or girl know it's time to reel in their catch. 

The "caught frog" is then placed on the lily pad that has the matching number of flies!  

If you'd like to play this froggy fishing game in your class, I am currently offering the brand new updated version of all the frogs and lily pads you need for this activity in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop. 

It includes frogs and lily pads numbered from 1-12, as well as a set of frogs with numbers 1-12 represented in various forms (i.e., with tally marks, ten frames, and dice).

I should also mention, that the set includes directions for making this an easy to set-up table top activity.  

Some days, simpler is better!

The kids get to fish either way, and practice counting, numeral recognition, and subitizing at the same time!

Find this Froggy Fishing Set HERE!