Two years ago for Valentine's Day, I made heart shaped crayons for my class and taped them to a cute little card with washi tape.  I loved that project!

This year, I made treats for my son's class, needed something non-candy for my daughter's preschool class (no sugar allowed at her school), and also something for my class.  That means, my class got something easy.  Sorry kids!

My school had professional development on Friday, so I needed my class' treats ready for Thursday.  Wednesday night, I sent my husband to the store for a bag of candy and he came back with Wonka's Sweetart Lollipops.  I printed out these cards on light pink cardstock and taped them to the lollipop.  Easy peasy!


My son is in 3rd grade, so he wanted something "cool".  That means no hearts, no pink, and certainly no mushy sayings.  We went to the store Thursday night and picked up a bag of Pixie Stix for a little over $2.00.  Crafting in the Rain had an adorable idea of taping the Pixie Stix to the card with washi tape.  So I found the most boy-ish washi tape I had and printed his cards on orange cardstock.  I didn't have a class list for his class, so we made them without names.  It's way easier to pass out without names, anyway.  I love how they turned out!

Since my daughter's preschool is sugar-free, she got heart shaped crayons.  I used a different method than I did in the post I linked at the top.  I peeled the wrappers off a bunch of broken crayons and sorted them by color into ziplock bags.  I melted the crayons in a small metal bowl placed on top of a boiling pot of water and poured the melted wax into heart-shaped soap molds from the craft store.  I made them with two colors.  The first color I poured halfway.  Let it dry for a few minutes, then poured the second color to fill the mold.  I put the full mold in the freezer to help it harden faster.  Then I popped them out and put them in little zipper bags I had for jewelry.  I loved these bag toppers from My Frugal Adventures, but needed mine to be smaller to fit the small zipper bags.  

I also made cute little teacher gifts.  This is the one for my daughter's teacher.  I cut the vinyl on my Silhouette Portrait.  I used the apple from The School Supply Addict and KG's Always a Good Time font for the name.  I bought purple mason jars at the craft store and found these cool cup lids.

These would be great for Teacher Appreciation, too! 

If you are interested in the cards I made above, you can download them {HERE}.

What did you do for Valentine's Day? 
This month my class has been working on color mixing.  This is one of our fine arts standards.

I made this sign to hang with my student work so my principal and any visitors can see we are working on standards.



We started off by watching Mouse Paint on YouTube.  I couldn't find my book, so the video was second best.  I used these directions to download the video at home the night before since my school blocks YouTube.

After the book, we did some color mixing with this freebie from Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business.

Then we made some color wheels from Mrs. Brown's Art.  I've actually made this project for the past four years: in 3rd grade, 2nd grade, and now 1st grade.  


The original project has the kids make bubble letters.  Some of my 2nd graders had problems with this last year, so I decided to make die cut letters for the 1st graders.  This way, they could trace the die cuts and not feel frustrated.    


Unfortunately, the teacher on my team who ordered art supplies for the grade level last year bought really cheap watercolors.  They are not very vibrant.  In the future, I'll make sure to order my own so I can get my favorite, Crayola.  
I like trays of 8 colors for students to use on their own.

Or trays of 16 for two students to share.


 How do you teach art lessons like color mixing?
Here are some things that have been going on in my classroom the past couple of weeks!

Interactive Math Notebooks from my friend Yvonne Crawford!

Here is the activity on fact families.  It's a great introduction for each standard.


Doubles Dude - from Amy Lemon's Addition Strategy pack!

How To Make a Snowman writing from Sweet Sensations.

And my class has been LOVING our Fun Friday board.  I saw this idea on my friend A Teeny Tiny Teacher's blog.  It's such a smart system.  And it works for inside recess, too! It was raining once last week and the vice principal came to my room to watch the kids so I could go check my mailbox and run to the copy room real quick.  When I got back, the kids were telling her all about the Fun Friday board and she was so impressed! The kids get out all the supplies, move through the activities independently, and clean up - all on their own.  Fun Friday is my favorite 30 minutes of the week! Thank you Teeny!

Games on Laptops.  I set up a free Portaportal page that has lists of links all organized by subject.  They get to play whatever game they want from the page on Fun Friday.

Cars and Legos.  Favorites for the boys. I got the Legos at Amazon.  They were cheaper than Walmart and Toys R Us!  The cars are a collection of Tonka tractors and wooden cars from when my son was little.

These girls picked Math Manipulatives and are building with Magnatiles.

These girls picked art.  They are painting with watercolors.

It's been busy around here! But we still manage to squeeze in some fun.  What has your class been up to during the past couple of weeks?
Peekapak is a monthly box for children that combines the magic of storytelling with the excitement of hands-on crafts.  Each month, your child receives an original storybook featuring an educational adventure story and all the materials to create two items that are features in the story.

Peekapak offered to send me a complimentary box for my family to try out.  This is what our box looked like when we first opened it up.

The first project was to make storytelling puppets to use while reading the story.  We'll keep these to use with future boxes, too. 

We sat down at our art/homework table in the corner of our kitchen and got to work.  I cut the shapes out and Audrey taped them to the popsicle sticks.  The tape that came in our Peekapak wasn't that sticky, so I swapped it for some Scotch tape in our junk drawer. 

The story was about tangrams.  A wooden set with a page with patterns came in our box.

As we read the story, we got to make the same tangrams as the characters.

Audrey used the retelling sticks to act out the story.

These are the supplies to make a kaleidoscope.

She had a lot of fun decorating her kaleidoscope and looking through it!

This is what we needed to make a parachute drop.  The pattern on the cup is so cute!

All the activities in the box were great for a couple of afternoon projects.  And the best part was that they all can be used more than once.  Even after a few months, she still plays with the tangrams and the kaleidoscope!

Are you interested in trying Peekapak for yourself? You can get $10 off your first month with the code SPECIAL10.
Just click {HERE} to check it out!