Spring Crafts Bulletin Board

4 Easy Spring Crafts to create a seasonal Bulletin Board

We've been hard at work on some fabulous Spring crafts! In addition to our Tape Resist Butterflies, we made paper plate birds (inspired by this pin),  torn paper birds' nest (inspired by this pin) and water color flowers. My 15 year old daughter (who inherited her artistic gene from my husband, thankfully) came after school to help me create our Spring Bulletin Board:

My daughter painted the grass and flower stems, the rest was all created by my students!

Here's a close up of our birds and butterflies. I love how they're all so different! The best thing about the birds is that they require no templates - just 1/2 a paper plate and some water color paints and my kids had a blast painting! Then they chose 3 "tail feathers" and 3 feathers for the wings, as well as their googly eyes. A folded orange rhombus makes the beak.

For our flowers we used watercolors again.  This was a center time activity and very popular! Then we cut out the flowers (we assisted with the cutting for this one as they were a bit too difficult for my kiddos) and mounted them on the stems that my daughter painted on the butcher paper.

My daughter created the tree out of butcher paper and we added our torn paper birds' nests!

My students got a fine motor workout tearing all of the paper for their nests! I had 3 different colors of brown construction paper (not even sure how I ended up with 3 different browns, it was just what was in my cupboard!) and they tore it to cover 1/2 a paper plate.

Next they picked out 3 different colors for their baby birds, rounded the corners (I drew lines for them to cut) and picked out eyes. So simple yet so adorable!

I am absolutely in love with our hallway now - and just wait until you see our "April Showers" bulletin board tomorrow!

Top 10 Field Trip Tips for Kindergarten

10 Ways to Make Your Next Field Trip

Stress-free!

These field trip suggestions are tried and true tips that I've gathered after many, many field trip experiences. From the first moment you begin planning a field trip, to deciding what to bring to a field trip, to choosing your chaperones, you want to have all your bases covered so you can enjoy the experience!

There are few things more stressful than planning an elementary field trip. Last minute money counting, permission slip collecting and sack lunch logistics might fill your morning at school. By the time you make sure every child takes a potty break and has an assigned a buddy, there's barely time to gulp a little lukewarm coffee before heading onto the bus. During the bus ride (which can feel interminable if you don't keep the kids occupied) you can sing practically every song you know and still not be "there yet". True fact: we once sang over 10 songs during a 15 minute bus ride -  proof (at least to me) that buses travel through some kind of warped time/space continuum that makes every minute of the ride last ten times longer than normal!

Still. Field Trips are a rite of passage for students all over the country. The coolness of a teacher/grade/school is sometimes measured by how many field trips they offer. A field trip can be the learning experience that ties together a unit of study. It can be the jumping off point for research or a team building experience. 

While a field trip can be a great experience,  a poorly planned or organized one can be a nightmare! In order to maximize the learning and reduce your stress, here are 10 tips for a better field trip!

Order Your Sack Lunches

Put your sack lunch list in early and in writing. There is nothing worse than a mix-up about lunches. Make sure you know how far advance you need to order your sack lunches – every school is different. When you order, do it in writing and include the total number of student, chaperone and teacher lunches you’ll need. Make sure to note any dietary restrictions so your lactose intolerant student gets juice rather than milk that day!

Remember To Medicate

Check on medication – from epi-pens to inhalers to ADHD meds, you’ll need to know if students will have to take those medications while on the field trip or if they can safely be given before or after the trip. In the case of medication that needs to be taken along, how must it be stored? Do you need to be certified to administer it? Find this information out well in advance so you can plan for it!

Send Home The Slips

Copy  twice as many permission slips as you have students. Some are going to get lost before they even get home. Some are going to be destroyed by spilled juice, baby sisters or dogs. This is not the time to teach “responsibility” so if students forget  or lose their slip, make sure you have extras handy so you don’t have to keep running to the copy machine! Also, make sure to give plenty of time to get those permission slips returned – and consider giving them a grace period – tell the permission slips are due on Tuesday when you actually can take them until Thursday. That way when a student turns his slip in a day late, you can still accept it! 

 

Choose Chaperones Wisely

Check with your venue to determine how many chaperones they recommend. Then look at your parent volunteers and choose the ones who will be responsible, on time, and actually paying attention to all the children in their group, not just their own! You can generally tell the more trustworthy parents by thinking about who comes to school activities, who is always on time for dismissal, which student always remembers a backpack/coat and which student is never tardy. You don’t want to have a parent who will back out at the last minute, show up late, encourage misbehavior or ignore the rest of the children in their group.

Assign Your Groups

This is not the time to allow students to choose who they want to partner up with. In order to make sure the field trip is safe, enjoyable and a good learning experience for all, take care when putting your groups together. Try to separate chatty students, make sure students who don’t get along are in different groups and assign your challenging students to yourself. If you have a student with especially poor behavior, consider having one of his parents come specifically to look after him. For younger students, assign each child a “buddy” to hold hands with as they walk from school to bus to venue. It is harder for two students to wander off than just one!

Make a List For Your Chaperones

Included should be:

Names of students in each group

Trip itinerary

Phone numbers for your cell, the school and other chaperones.

Field Trip rules

You should also have copies of that information, along with student permission slips so you have contact numbers at hand.

Prepare For The Bus Ride

Make sure everyone goes to the bathroom before getting on the bus! Come up with ways to occupy students on the bus - idle students get LOUD! During a short bus ride, you can sing songs with the students. Make a list of ones you’re all familiar with, because trying to remember a song on the spot can be difficult. For longer bus rides consider bringing dry erase boards and markers, a book to read aloud or books for the children to look at. If possible, let students know which landmarks to look for so they’ll know how close you are. “We’re going to have to pay two tolls, so we won’t be there until after the second toll.” can cut down on at least a few “Are we there yet?”s.  Know your bus rules regarding drinks/snacks – especially for younger students who might need to eat or drink during a longer bus ride. Generally if you clean up, the bus driver will let you ignore that “No Food or Drinks” sign at the front of the bus!

Count Your Students, Often

Do a headcount the morning of the trip. Consider writing that number on your hand so you’ll easily remember it. Then count again when you’re on the bus, as you come off the bus, if you’re switching activities and at random points throughout the day. If a student does manage to wander off, its better to find out when you’re doing another headcount than when its time to get on the bus! Make sure students know your name and your school name so they can be returned to you if they get lost. For safety reasons, its not good to put the child’s name on his shirt, but consider a sticker INSIDE the shirt or a wrist bracelet with the information.

Let Your Students Lead You

Take your cues from the students - during the field trip they might want to spend more time on one activity than another. If they become engrossed in something, consider whether you can omit something else to accommodate spending more time on that activity. If they’re antsy after the long bus ride, try to let them let off some steam before any sit-down activities. Keep the pace up so they don’t get bored, but be ready to stop for a restroom or drink break so they don’t get worn out. Make sure to schedule water breaks throughout the day for outside activities so no one gets dehydrated. When stopping for a bathroom break, make sure everyone goes, even if they don’t think they need to!

Evaluate Your Trip

After the field trip – discuss what you saw/learned/heard while on the bus or right when you get back to the classroom. Have students record their experience with a quick drawing or writing activity while its still fresh in their minds. Over the next few days you can expand on the learning, but its important to give students time to “download” the information in some way on the day of the trip. They can then refer to that during the follow up lessons! While they're doing that, you can write down any tips you want to remember for your next field trip!

               Here's a handy check-list for you to help you remember these                 field trip tips. Just click the picture to download for free!

Tape Resist Butterflies

I love Pinterest. I get tons of inspiration from it. What I don't like is when I find a seemingly simple, yet creative project and it turns out not-so-simple after all! If you've been following me on Facebook, you'll have seen me sharing several Tape Resist Art pins - while I couldn't do an Easter Egg, I decided that  the process would translate nicely to a butterfly:

First I looked for a butterfly outline - and Pinterest failed me again! I followed this pin to a dead end and then decided to just copy the picture and enlarge it in a PowerPoint document. Next I used some painter's tape to section off my butterfly and proceeded to try the wet chalk method.

FAIL. Big Time. The roughness of even wet chalk was too much for my cardstock to hold up to! The paper started pilling, the color was less than vibrant and I just wasn't impressed. I did this in front of my students, in the morning before breakfast, and while they were excited to try it, I knew that it would have to be tweaked to work with 20 little artists.

 Luckily I'm work best under pressure, so I got out the water color paints for a second try at this tape resist business.

The kids loved it. Some of my least artistically inclined students were the most enthusiastic over the project! I had one little guy, who's usually more enthused about gun-play and wrestling, beg to be able to create another one!

 My awesome assistant was in charge of applying the tape so that all of the butterflies looked different. She came up with some really neat patterns!

 Once the butterflies were dry, it was time to take the tape off. Oh. My. Word! Talk about frustration! That tape stuck to the paper and ripped off layers of cardstock about 1/2 the time. It was tedious and time consuming to remove the tape.The original pin was created by a mom of 2 - and maybe if I had only 2 students, removing the tape wouldn't have been so bad, but I seriously was ready to scrap the whole project in the recycling bin by the end. Luckily my awesome assistant stayed late to help me out - probably because she sensed the butterflies were in imminent danger if she left me with them unattended!

 But.....I have to admit....they turned out beautiful!

These will be gorgeous on our Spring bulletin board display that we are building this week - with several other Pinterest inspired crafts, so cross your fingers for me! Would I ever do tape resist art again? Probably not....but the results are so darned pretty I might forget the pain and try it again next year!

In Science news, Spring means thunderstorms and thunderstorms mean downed tree limbs. We brought this bad boy in for closer examination! My kids also love to bring in rocks "for Science Center" so I set them up with some paintbrushes and water so they could explore how the rocks were transformed when wet.

We discovered some of our "rocks" were actually pieces of bark, and that the rust on the metal ring was very pretty when wet!

I'm hoping to be able to get our chicken eggs in the incubator this week, plus start some of our plants. We're also going to our city-wide Showcase event at the end of April to perform "To the Music" by Bounce Patrol so we're practicing for that like crazy. My biggest fear is that my kiddos will freeze up on stage, so we practice on our school stage during lunch time a few times a week!

Oh! And another thing I'm going to blame on Pinterest! I posted about this idea on Facebook and wondered where to find the eggs with clear lids.

Someone mentioned PetSmart had some, so I took my family to the store on Saturday to see if I could grab some. They didn't have any eggs, but we did come home with these:

As if my life wasn't busy enough, I somehow managed to con my husband into getting 2 female guinea pigs! Why didn't he say no?? They're adorable, and my kids love them, so I'm hoping this isn't one of those chores that is going to fall back on me....although their cage IS located in my office...

Anyways, have a super week! Check back soon for more freebies, pictures of our Chicken Life Cycle unit AND some super awesome giveaways that are in the works!