Valentine's Day Party

I don't know why, but when I was a kid Valentine's Day was one of my favorite holidays. I can remember staying up all night picking out the right valentine for each of my classmates. I can remember always being jealous of the kids that had candy attached to their Valentine's Day cards... my mom refused to buy that kind! Now as a teacher, I still get excited about Valentine's Day! There is something about the environment that day, everything is pink and red and flowers are everywhere and everyone seems a little bit nicer. Trying to get anything academic done is a struggle with kids asking every 5 minutes when the party is and when they can hand out their Valentine's. Well finally the end of the days draws near and we get to have the long awaited party...

My least favorite game in the world is the one where you have to pop a balloon by sitting on it. It make me cringe just to think about it. I refused to play it as a kid and I still don't like watching it as an adult. I don't know what it is, but the sitting on the balloon, jumping up and down, waiting to hear the pop just makes me so nervous and I get this feeling like I'm on a roller coaster and that downward spike is coming and your stomach just flops....yikes! However, most kids love this game and thus it was chosen to be played at the party- and I have to say, the kids had a blast! It was quite the excitement running up and down with a balloon between their legs and then having to pop it on the chair. One little boy was too tiny and a dad that had volunteered literally had to push him down to help him pop it!

 We also got to enjoy some yummy ice cream sundaes. What is it about little boys that they want to swirl all of their ingredients together to make ice cream soup?!

 And my favorite part of Valentines Day? Making these fun Valentines for the students to give to their parents!! We had so much fun...I got the idea and format from another blog and the students had so much fun taking their pictures with a mustache!

Here is the original blog....

http://theinspiredapple.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-moustache-you-to-be-my-valentine-art.html

Thanks for the great idea!

Don't Leave Your Coats at School!

And this is how we clean up in room 321. He had about 20 coats (I'm only exaggerating a little) that he would leave on his chair, on his, desk, in his locker, on other people's desks. Finally I got a huge trash bag stuffed it all inside and said Don't bring it back! Ha. I wish I could've seen him trying to get that on the bus! We all had a good laugh. :)

Christmas Party

So this post is really late...but that's just how life goes. Our Christmas party was a blast! I had found an idea on a blog for a really cute reindeer ornament to make using styrofoam balls and yarn and red poof balls and googly eyes...I was really excited about, but as a procrastinator, I was unable to get all of the materials I needed as our Wal-Mart rarely has what I need! I was so frustrated because our Christmas party was the next day and I did not have a craft! But as I was searching pinterest I found these really cute ornament trees made out of buttons! All of the directions involved needles and seemed really complicated though so I began feeling really discouraged. But, my wonderful husband said that he thought it would not be so complicated and let's just try it, so we went to Wal-Mart again at about 10:30 at night and bougt a ton of buttons and rope string. We got home and proceeded to trying to make our own and it was a success! All we did was string it through (you need two/four holed buttons and put one end of the string through each of the holes and tie at the top.) The only problem was a little fraying, nothing some clear nail polish couldn't fix! So for the next hour my husband helped me cut 24 strings to the right length and nail polish both ends and sort buttons. :) It was well worth it and the kids loved making the cute ornaments! And way less messy and complicated than my original project idea....thank goodness, hot glue gun needed!

After creating the ornaments, we had a fun snack. I bought sugar cones, icing that I dyed with green food coloring, and lots of candy for decorations. The kids had so much fun creating these yummy, though quite messy, treats!

I have to say, I LOVE holiday parties. They may be exhausting and chaotic, but I love just getting to have FUN with my kiddos. Well worth it!