Classroom Party 101: Keep Calm & Party On!

On the last day before vacation, we will enjoy a 3-group rotation party:

HOW IT WORKS:

Divide the class into 3 groups.

Set up 3 activities:  

     One should be the food prep & eating (1/3 of class eating at once keeps spills to a  minimum.)

     One should be a game (A seasonal bingo game and a story keeps kids calm.)

     One a project.  (A fun craft to take home.)

Each group meets for 30 minutes and then rotates.

Include seasonal books at each center just in case the kids finish early.  

Have parent volunteers run the 3 centers.  That leaves you free to facilitate, signal when the groups rotate, and take care of any problems. 

This year, our 3 activities will be:
1.  Wrap our family gifts and color a special holiday card.  (See our gifts below.)
2.  Holiday bingo & a holiday story.
3.  Create a healthy fruit candy cane.  (See directions below.)

Would you like to see what we made for our families this year?

Our Family Gifts:

Ceramic Gingerbread Men

We  rolled out white clay & cut out gingerbread men with a cookie cutter.

The students used a pencil to draw in frosting trim and indentations for the eyes, nose, mouth and buttons.
We also pushed a straw through near the top so we can hang the ornament when we are done.

We are fortunate to have a kiln at our school so we fired the ornaments.  If you don't have a kiln, you might try ceramic stores like "Color Me Mine" and see if they will fire your clay for a fee.

Then, we glazed with clear glaze.  It fires to a pretty off-white color that looks a lot like a piece of Lenox china.

Painting on 2 coats of glaze.

We worked on our dry-erase mats.
They cleaned up easily with water.

When they came out of the kiln after the 2nd firing,
they were shiny and off-white.

We added rhinestones for the eyes and a ribbon to use as a hanger.

We added rhinestones for the eyes.
You can also add some for the nose & buttons.

We added a ribbon tied at one end, fed through the hole, and then we pushed the knot through the loop to create a hanger for our ornament.

First tie the ribbon.

Then thread it through the hole.

Last, thread it through the loop & pull.

The students wrapped them in tissue paper.

Looks orange, but this was actually red tissue paper.  

Then they placed them into an envelope they made by lacing up the sides and decorating it with construction paper strips to look like ribbon.

We stapled them closed at the top.

Our Gingerbread Number Book:

You can make these on the last day by just tracing the dotted lines on the large numbers with crayons and illustrating the pages, but if you take a week to create this project, you can trace the large numbers with colored glue and let each page dry overnight.

Click image to view the download.

To make colored glue, just add liquid food coloring to white glue.  

We also made a Gingerbread Book of settings while at the computer lab:

Students created a setting for their die-cut gingerbread man.
Click the image to view the download for this class book cover.  

Our Healthy Party Treat:

This year, we are planning to enjoy candy canes made from bananas and strawberries.

Found this cute idea on Pinterest!

We will use 1/2 of a banana and 2 strawberries for each child.  They will slice the pieces with plastic knives on paper plates and then eat them when they are done.  

Leave a comment and tell me about your holiday party ideas.

See you all tomorrow!

Palma :)