Classroom Crafts

I am so incredibly thankful for my job that allows me the flexibility to work and still be present for my children's classroom activities. I had the opportunity to do a craft with Josiah's class last Friday. One of the things we made was a Christmas door hanger. Kids had fun. I did, too! Above is Josiah, Tucker, Isaac, and Riley.
Josiah busy painting his ornament craft. (Yes, we did Christmas crafts before Thanksgiving because the stores were sold out of Thanksgiving crafts, lol!)

Rylan, Josiah, and me.

Rylan and Josiah. Definitely buddies!

Today, I had the opportunity to join Mackenzie's class in making a Ginger Bread house for the Fantasy of Trees, a fund raiser for Children's Hospital. Above: Sophia, Emma, McKenna, and Mackenzie.

Mackenzie, McKenna, and Emma

Caleb and Mackenzie mixing icing for the gingerbread house.

Mackenzie and Savannah taking a turn at decorating.

Mackenzie and me with the finished ginger bread house!

The kids tried to make a cross out of skittles on the roof on this side.

This side of the roof has a Christian fish on it, and "Baby Jesus" (i.e., Ginger Bread Man) is in the Manger at the front door!

I think the kids did a great job. We all had fun. I think the best part was watching the kids enjoy some of the left over candies! I loved getting to be with the kids for these fun activities at school.

Fall Festivities

We've been busy with lots of fun activities. Here's some pictures to catch you up-to-date. Mackenzie and Josiah at a pumpkin patch on Tuesday afternoon. We stopped by to pick out a couple "pie size pumpkins" for school projects.
And I had to snap a few pictures while we were there, of course. ;)

This morning, after settling the kids in their classrooms, I joined some friends and we off-loaded their truck bed full of pumpkins. Today was going to be pumpkin patch day for the kids, complete with hayrides! Due to rain, the pumpkin patch grew out of concrete this year. ;) The kids loved getting to pick out pumpkins. Thanks to our friends for donating the pumpkins. The hayride was rained out, but we all had fun anyways! You can see the trailer full of hay behind Proctor's truck. Would have been fun....sigh...but the concrete pumpkin patch was great!

Here's the Kindergarten side of the pumpkin patch.

My Little Man is in the middle of the back row with the gray shirt and red pants. Today was "dress up like a community hero" day; they enjoyed being out of dress code. Josiah was a firefighter.

Josiah with a few other boys picking out pumpkins.

Josiah and me at the concrete pumpkin patch. lol.

Here's his whole class with the pumpkins they chose. He's on the front row toward the right.

Mackenzie's class did not attend the pumpkin patch (it was just for the Kindergarten and 3rd grades as those are the grades that Proctor and Allison's kids are in), but they did enjoy painting pumpkins in their classroom today. I guess 2nd graders are more independent than Kindergartners as they did not need parents in the room to help today. So, I don't have any pictures of Mackenzie from today! I did get to eat lunch, one-on-one, with the kids today during their lunchtimes. That was fun. The above picture is of Josiah's class decorating pumpkins with stickers this afternoon.

Josiah and Tucker

Josiah decorating his pumpkin with stickers.

Josiah and me. I love getting to be involved in his classroom activities! I am thankful to "share" room mom responsibilities with Lexi's mom this year. Very nice, indeed!

Josiah with Mrs. Haluska

Candid pics of pumpkin decorating.

Cutie

Aly and Josiah

Last weekend, David and I worked together to create a "baby poster" for Josiah. The assignment was about baby names and pictures. Josiah was hilarious. He saw that his full name was on the poster. He quickly indicated that he did NOT want his middle name on the poster. We said it had to be on the poster because of the assignment. We tried to explain the importance of his "family name." When I told him about the four people in the family with that name, his quickly said, "I wish there was one less." Poor baby! He was very funny about it. Then, after presenting it at school, he came home excited. I asked him what his friends thought about his name. He said, "It's cool, Mom." Apparently his name went over quite well in the classroom! How funny.

The poster will be on display all year long in the classroom. He was so proud of his poster that he wants to hang it in his room at home. He has asked us to make another one for him to have here at home because he says he can't wait until the end of the school year to have one in his room. Cracks me up. Glad he liked it.

I wish I had pictures of Mackenzie's class from today, too. I enjoyed my lunch time with her. She enjoyed her day at school. She was dressed as a Bible character. Cutie! I am so thankful for the flexibility of my job. I am grateful to be able to work and still be present at school, too.

Kindergarten Craft, 2nd Grade Field Trip, Julia

Have I even taken time to mention in my blog that Mrs. Haluska asked me to be Room Mom for Josiah's class? Well, I said yes and tagged Allison, Lexi's Mom, to be Co-Room Mom with me! Nice to have a friend involved and to be able to share the responsibilities. I love being involved in the classroom. We had our first Craft Friday September 23rd. We will do those about once per month. Here's my little man. The kids were allowed to be out of dress code to celebrate Fall in farmer style clothes. Josiah wore a flannel shirt and blue jeans. The craft was nice and messy with paint to create hand print trees and thumb print leaves on the trees. We all enjoyed it.
One Sunday night we hosted our H2H small group Bible study at our house. One family has a new baby girl, Julia. She has an entire fan club, you see. Mackenzie was delighted to get to hold precious baby Julia.

SOOO super sweet. I love this picture! Julia doesn't seem to mind the attention, and the kids are learning so much from being around her. I am grateful that her parents are willing to share her with our whole H2H group! Thanks, Mike and Cindy, for sharing your blessing. :)

September 29th, Mackenzie's 2nd grade class took a field trip to Safety City. Sadly, I had to work that day. However, David was able to go and represent us and enjoy the day with Mackenzie. She loved having her Daddy there, too.

Safety City is a miniature city that teaches kids all kinds of safety skills, including rules of the road.

Mackenzie is on the bike to the right with a white shirt on in the above picture. Her class really enjoyed the trip.

That was 3 posts in 1! Getting caught up! More posts to come very soon. :)

School Craft, Egg Dying... & Destroying!

To back track to a couple of weeks ago...Mackenzie had a craft day at school. I put another Mom in charge of this one and she did an amazing job of creating an idea and gathering all the supplies for the kids! The kids made flower pots with tissue paper flowers in them. They even got to paint the pots! Obviously, this was a fun day at school for all of us involved! Mackenzie's finished flower pot.
Mackenzie and Alison painting their pots.

One day last week, I surprised Mackenzie after school. She had been begging to dye Easter eggs, but we didn't have a kit yet. So, Josiah and I went to the store and bought a kit while Mackenzie was at school. Josiah didn't remember (from last year) what Easter egg dying was all about, so he was excited to try it out, too.

Up close of Mackenzie.

Both kids dying their eggs. I had boiled one dozen for each child. They had so much fun! (I did, too!) :)

Hard at work with their eggs.

Josiah checking out his blue egg.

A happy boy with blue hands and lots of blue eggs!

Mackenzie (artsy little girl!) busy dying an egg half one color and half the other color!

Josiah proudly displaying as many blue eggs as his hands could possibly hold at one time!

Mackenzie with her finished product.

Josiah with his finished product.

Up close of Josiah's sweet little face peering down at his eggs.

Josiah, shortly after displaying his finished carton of eggs, discovered you can crack them! (Mackenzie was cracking hers and eating them. Josiah was cracking them for the fun of it!) He took this yellow egg and cracked it on the side of the garden box, then he threw it on the paving stones until the round yolk came out of the middle of the egg! (Yolk in his left hand; Egg white and shell in his right hand.) He was so proud of his cracked egg. Then, he proceeded to crack (ahem, destroy) eggs until I had to remove his carton lest they all get cracked (mutilated) in the yard!

We all had a fun time together, that's for sure. :) I hope to dye eggs with them one more time before Easter...we'll see. :)

Making Iguanas!

Mackenzie and Josiah painting iguanas! They both love to make crafts. Mackenzie had just told us earlier this same day that she really wished she could make a craft. How funny that we stumbled onto this opportunity at the resort after she made that request! Too bad this was not included in the price of the resort, but it was worth the $7 per child as it made a nice keepsake souvenir for them.
I guess I would describe the iguana as ceramic that the kids were painting. Once they finished painting them, the man said we could come pick them up tomorrow. When we arrived the next morning, we found the iguanas "finished." They had a shiny glaze with finishing details and everything! That man had put a lot of work into finishing the kids craft and making it a work of art to treasure! :)