Five for Friday!

What a term! The past 9 weeks have gone so fast, I can't believe we've arrived at school holidays already. We (myself and my students) are most definitely ready for a break though. Term 1 is always very full on with setting up a routine, testing and getting to know each other.

I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Click here to check out what other bloggers have been up to this week.

I picked up these super cute Easter books from Aldi at $5 each, bargain! The kids loved reading them this week, and the Pepper Pig and Spot books were easy enough for my struggling readers.

These super cute Holy Week posters were in a pack I purchased from Anne Hoffman's 1st Grade TPT store. They feature clip art from the amazingly talented Kari Bolt. This is the second year I've put them up during Lent to help teach my little wonders about Holy Week. They were a great visual reminder of the days involved in Holy Week and what occurred on each day. 

The little wonders created these beautiful cross silhouettes this week in our art lesson. They used chalk pastels for the background, and we talked about using colours that are touching on the colour wheel or in the rainbow. They practised smudging and blending their pastels, which I will admit, ended up in chalky jumper and pants. I am so happy with how these turned out, I think they look fantastic! I got the idea for this from Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten Connections.

We made these suuuuper cute Easter baskets out of paper plates as something a little different to the usual paper cut out ones. They have a pocket on the back made from another plate flipped around, as a space for their eggy goodies. They required a fair bit of help with stapling and hot gluing, but it was worth it.

 At the beginning of this Lenten season, we made a Lenten prayer chain. The little wonders wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and we linked them together to make a 40 link chain for every day leading up to Easter. They wrote prayers for animals, their classmates and for people who were sick, travelling or poor. We read one (or two depending on how many we had to catch up on) every morning during our daily prayer. The kids really enjoyed this.

Hope you've enjoyed a peek at my week.

Happy blogging!

Rice bubbles, marshmallows and chocolate, oh my!

Today the little wonders and I made the cutest Easter treat. 

Rice krispie eggs! Wow were they delicious (and sweet)! 

We used the recipe from the Kellogg's website, and were lucky enough to have our fantastic LSO Irene with us to help with the melting of the marshmallows and butter. We mixed the melted ingredients into our rice bubbles to create the stickiest mixture ever known to man. 

I think I had the best job, watching the little wonders try with all their might to get the sticky rice bubbles into their egg mould. Mind you, they were not complaining when rice bubbles got stuck to their hands as there was only one good way to get them off. 

After the longest thirty minutes of their lives, the little wonders' eggs were set enough for for them to eat and boy did they enjoy themselves! 

As an extra chocolaty surprise, we added Cadbury Mini Drops in the centre of the eggs (yummy!).

If you're after a great Easter treat to make with your class or you own kids, they are sure to love this one. 

Thanks for reading!

Stained Glass Easter Decorations

I LOVE THESE!

I think they might even be my favourite Easter craft..big call, I know! And if you know me, you know how much I love art and craft. 

I found the idea for these on Pinterest but changed them a bit. I couldn't find the link back to the blog but if someone does please let me know. So as I said I changed them a little bit. The original post showed an egg cut out on one side and nothing on the other. Being in a Catholic school I wanted to tie it back to Jesus and the Easter story, so we made it double sided with a cross on the back. 

To save a lot of time I cut out the cross and egg shape from each plate in advance (I kept the cut outs to use in other Easter crafts). I wanted them to be nice and bright so the children chose a colour to paint them. I emphasised the importance of doing our brushstrokes in the same direction to make them look neat, which surprisingly they all listened to.

Once they were finished painting they stuck coloured pieces of cellophane onto a piece of plastic, one piece for the egg, and one for the cross. They then stuck the plastic onto the inside of each plate and staples the plates together. 

They turned out wonderfully. Very proud of the effort the little wonders put into them. I wish I didn't have to take them down in 2 days for school holidays, they look so great in my classroom!

Hoppy Easter!

Easter preparations are in full swing and I am looooving all the fun Easter art and craft we have been doing!

I wanted to incorporate finger printing into our Easter card this year, so I thought to myself

 'Whats cuter than finger printed bunnies and chicks?!' 

The answer was nothing.

I have a fantastic book by Ed Emberley called 'The Complete Funprint Drawing Book' which has hundreds of different characters made from fingerprints. It is a great visual for showing children how to add simple details to create super cute people and animals. 

I absolutely love the art my little wonders produce. They are all so individual and I love seeing their uniqueness come through in their art. 

New Life, New Ideas, New Love!

The countdown to Easter has begun! And we have been very busy thinking of ways we can help others during the Christian season of Lent.

I don't know what it is about Easter, but it seems so hard for the little wonders to keep track of which days relate to each event. So in a bid to help my kids remember we have been reading, re-reading, sequencing, role playing and drawing the Easter Story, and will continue to do so for the next 2 weeks!

I have been stressing to my students that Easter isn't all about eating chocolate eggs. That its a time to remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us and to celebrate and embrace new life.

To remind us of this during the lead up to Easter we made little crosses out of twigs and planted them in a cup with soil and grass seeds. The little wonders have been eagerly watching and waiting for our tiny seedlings to grow into a garden of green grass. I am very proud of how attentive they have been to their little gardens.

I got the idea for this off Pinterest but couldn't find a link to the original source. If you know of it please let me know so I can share the link to it.