Happy (VERY LATE) Mother's Day

Again, I have got to catch up!  Hopefully next year I'll be a little more efficient - I may even post ideas and pictures BEFORE the actual holiday/event passes!  :o)

Here are some of the things we did for Mother's Day...

First in the Art Center the week before Mother's Day, my students sat down with my assistant and made a flower that is technically a bubble map.  In my days as a public school teacher my school district was pushing Thinking Maps.  I LOVE Thinking Maps, so I brought the ideas with me to my new school.  That week we were discussing "sparkle words" also known as adjectives.  Each group came up with a list of adjectives as well as things that their moms do best.  They took a pre-printed flower blossom that had the word MOM in the middle.  On each petal they picked an adjective and wrote one per petal.  They snipped "grass" and glued it to the bottom of the page, and then they cut out a stem with some leaves.  The white paper that you see as the backing is actually a large white envelope.  This is what they put their framed picture in as well as a writing project about their moms.  They turned out so darn cute! (And I was also proud to show off how smart they are too!) :o)

THEN the week of Mother's Day, my first round of reading groups got together with me and wrote a note to their mothers.  They thought of the things their moms like and told them what they would give their moms if they could get them anything in the whole world.  Then they each drew a picture of their loving gifts.  I loved these - they turned out so cute. I cannot remember where I found this printable...I think it was out of an ancient Mailbox Teacher's Helper.

Last, but definitely not least, we made a picture frame for our moms.  I took a picture of each students holding a sign that says "Mom, I love you to pieces!"  I think I'm going to do this every single year until I cannot teach anymore!  They were PERFECT!  After I had the pictures developed, I glued each picture onto a piece of foam purchased from the Dollar Tree.  The students got to pick the color.  I had each of them come and help me hot glue puzzle pieces from small puzzles I also bought at the Dollar Tree.  This made a frame all the way around the picture.  As you have read before, I have limited funds when it comes to my classroom.  If you can afford it, I would recommend buying those cardstock picture frames from Michaels or any other arts and crafts store.  When we put our purchase order together at the end of the year, we made sure to purchase a set of these frames in Bender Burkot's catalog.  Then you can just glue the puzzle pieces to the frame.  I'm sorry to say that I do not have a picture of the final project, but hopefully the description is enough to picture it?  Here is one of the photos (and I always block my students' pictures out using iPhoto, so I know it looks weird, but I also know that all of you understand!) :o)

...be at peace, and all will be well...