End of Year Gifts

I'm I'm bad. I fell off the blogging wagon again. And this time I'm not going to promise that I will try to keep up because I now definitely know that it's a promise I can't keep. ><

However, I am back today to share what I'm doing for end of the year gifts this year! There are some lucky teachers out there that are already on their summer vacation. Lucky them! I'm on my last week (last day with kids is Thursday). So close yet so far! Anyways, this is my first and last year with this school (more about that in a different entry). I am going to miss my colleagues very much, especially the "lunch bunch" (as we call ourselves). Last year, I left my school with such short notice (two weeks before school started!) that I never gave my awesome colleagues there a good-bye gift. Well, this year I'm leaving with much more notice so I decided these well-deserved colleagues need a gift. After much research on Pinterest (love that site!) I came up with....

These cute beverage containers filled with some summer yums and relaxing time!

I found these awesome beverage containers in the "dollar" section of Target. (In quotes because these were $3 each not $1 each.) I literally then wandered around Target trying to find things to stuff into the containers. I had one of the containers open as my test one. After a good amount of wandering, I finally found everything I needed.

Below are the items in each container:

Missing: Mini hand sanitizer and an Eos lip balm.

The sunscreen, bug spray, and face masks went into the little blue bag before it went into the container. End result came out good! These containers are going to go to my grade-level team and the Kinder team (we all eat lunch together). 

My para (who is also the school librarian) also gets a similar gift except her goodies are inside this cute little tote bag (also found in the "dollar "section) AND she gets a mason jar with a straw (look for the pink!).

Now on to the students!

I typically buy my student books through Scholastic as their end of the year gift. I've always seen the idea of summer buckets floating around on Pinterest but never felt that it was totally necessary for my students. However, this year I'm teaching at a Title One school and I also had a good amount of money left to spend from the Parent Association so I decided that this would be the year to give it a try!

Got my buckets at the Dollar Tree.

And labeled them with a silver Sharpie. 

I'm actually not done with this particular project because I plan to assemble the buckets after school the day before school ends. It just seemed silly to assemble them at home and then have to carry 20 filled buckets to school. 

However, I did test assemble one at home just to see what it would look like...

Inside: spiral notebook, book from Scholastic, bubbles, crayons, glue stick, sunglasses
Not Pictured: pencils, eraser, stickers

You know how when you see one awesome idea and want to do it even though you already have an awesome idea? Well, I saw this super cute poem to the students on Ideas by Jivey so of course, I HAD to do it too! 

I printed the poem on half of cardstock, added a picture of me and that student, and laminated it. This will go in their report card envelope.

The kiddos are also going to get beach balls for signing on the last day of school.

And that's all folks! Hopefully you get some ideas of gifts for your colleagues and students from this post. I'd also love to hear what end of the year gifts you are giving this year! :D

Holiday Gifts

Woohoo! Holiday recess (as my district calls it) has finally begun! I tried to start a blog post early this week to share what we've been working hard on in class this past month, but exhaustion settled in and it never got finished. But fear not! I plan to finish the post during this break so stay tuned to hear about our gingerbread adventures later!

Today, however, I thought I would have enough energy to make a short post to share my holiday gifts this year. I really relied heavily on Pinterest this year, but they turned out cute! Here we go!

Double Chocolate & Toffee Cookies in a jar for the grade-level team and principal!
Credit: Crazy Little Projects

Reindeer Hot Cocoa for the "lunch bunch"
Credit: Thrifty Jinxy

Books from Scholastic, cocoa drizzled kettle korn from Trader Joe's (snowman bags from Michaels), and pencils from the Target dollar section for the students! The card was made via Vistaprint.

The kids especially loved their gifts. They really enjoyed the popcorn while watching a Charlie Brown Christmas, and were super excited after coming in from lunch when they saw presents on their desks!

Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday break! Don't forget to relax, relax, and RELAX! :D

Thank You Gifts

It's the end of the year, which means...time to appreciate all the hard work of our enrichment teachers and dedicated parent volunteers!

We have a lot of enrichment teachers (Motor Skills, PE, Computer, Library, Music). Our last writing unit was on letter writing so the kids wrote thank you letters to each enrichment teacher and I bound them up into a little book. We also wrote thank you letters for our Art parent, classroom aide, Opera teaching artist, and Opera parent.

In addition to the thank you letter books, my Art and Opera parents got a mint plant for their com"mint"ment to us!

I decided to just stick with a plant theme with gifts this year so I also got some mini succulents for our reading group parents. They meet with a small group of kids every week and read a chapter book with the students. 

My room parent also happens to be a reading group parent too so I fluffed her gift just a little bit more. :)

Finally, our field trip drivers got owl-themed thank you cards (made on Vistaprint) signed by all the kids.

And that is all the gifts we gave out to the teachers and volunteers! Phew!

Tomorrow's the last day of school! We will see if I have the energy to write about how the day goes! :)

Pre-Winter Break Recap

Oh no! I was halfway through my post and then Blogger froze and none of this entry got saved! Guess I have to start over again...

Well, I admit. My poor blog has been neglected once again, and I have so much to share about the past two weeks! Rather than write one very loooooong post, I'm going to chunk it into two posts, one for each week. So, let's rewind!

WEEK BEFORE WINTER BREAK

So much to accomplish during that week before winter break! Nothing really in the academic realm besides Math so we spent the week doing centers and research for our next project, becoming an expert on something relating to the Prehistoric Era!

This one wanted to know everything about volcanoes. 

Practicing our antonyms!

Reading Scholastic News!

Making compound words!

We also spent the week creating and finishing our cards and gifts to our buddies and family.

Making cards for our kinder buddies. 

Some were trying their hand in making pop-up cards. 

2014 calendars for the family.

Also made lavender-scented sock snowmen as another family gift.

We also wrapped up the week with our winter party! The parents led the kids through some crafts and games (not pictured)...

Making mason jar snowglobes. 

Ta-da! 

Add a ribbon and give it a little shake and it's done!

 ...then we enjoyed some delicious and cute snacks while watching Mr. Popper's Penguins! Great movie! If you haven't seen it yet, I would definitely recommend it!

And that was the week before winter break. Left the school with a bundle of gifts filled with student love. After placing them all around my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, I could barely see the tree!

Lastly, for those have you who wanted to know treat I made my co-workers this year...

"White Trash"!!

Got the recipe from a fellow blogger, Teaching with TLC.

Come back tomorrow for my recap on the first week of winter break! :D

Gifts Galore!

End of the school year also means appreciating and showering all our parent volunteers with gifts! So, what lovely gifts did we come up with this year? :)

Fingerprint vase, flowers, and card for the awesome art mom

Notepads for our noteworthy volunteers...weekly reading group parents!

The one with the pen set goes to a special mom who does reading groups and helps during art.

A marvelous tote bag for a marvelous room mom!

Last but not least...

Thank you cards for our field trip drivers! (made via Vistaprint)

What do YOU give your parent volunteers??? I would love to hear your ideas! :)

Two more days left! Aah!