1-2-3 Come Make A Keepsake With Me

Since "being able to recognize your name" and "write your name" were report card standards for my Y5's, I designed all sorts of repetitive activities that made that fun.

The parents of my students particularly enjoyed their child's keepsake name booklet, where they  wrote their name each month.  To help strengthen their finger muscles and dexterity, I included a themed coloring page for great fine motor skill practice.

The booklet is an easy and fun way to assess your students' abilities. Just an FYI, remind students when you pass out their booklets, that they are to only color ONE page. The 1st time I used the booklet, I had little ones coloring whatever they wanted, or whipping through the entire book, which defeats the purpose of showing improvement.

Make a sample and post it on your white board, to show them what page they should be doing. So that absent children are not missing a page, make sure to pull their booklets so they can catch up when they return.

For easy printing, run off and cut the booklet in half for a "just the right size" small booklet. 

Click on the link to view/download the Keepsake Name Coloring Booklet.

This packet will be FREE for an entire year, after which time it will be updated and become part of my Name Activities & Keepsake Monthly Name Booklets. In my TpT shop.

If you don't want to fuss with coloring, or you want to do an additional monthly activity, I also designed 2 pages where students simply write their name.

Use these as an easy assessment tool, to see at a glance who has passed this standard. You'll also be able to see wonderful improvement, which is a nice thing to show parents at conferences.  The update version includes a black and white copy, so that students can color their own pages.

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"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much; because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

1-2-3 Come Make Some Treat Bags With Me!

If you're looking for a quick and easy treat bag to make to hold some end-of-the year goodies, then I think you'll like these simple and inexpensive owl lunch bags.

If you've already got that covered, they are sweet for the beginning of the school year as well.  Simply change the saying to: "Owl" bet we have the best year yet or We're going to gain lots of knOWLedge in kindergarten or whatever grade you're teaching.

If you're looking for an owl puppet, simply glue everything on the bag upside down.  Students insert their hand inside the bag.

Here’s How To Make The Owl Treat Bags

Make templates of the pieces using an old file folder.

Trace the template onto one sheet of construction paper and then cut as many as you can.

I used daisy and circle paper punches. A flower petal punch also looks cool for the center of the eyes.

Glue the 2 triangles together.

Glue the 3 piece eyes together.

I added a bit of pizzazz to the black pupil using a dot of white out. It is quick drying and adds “life” to eyes.

Glue the set of triangles to the top-front of a brown paper lunch bag.

Glue the eyes a tad under the base of the triangle.

Fold the beak and glue it to the base of the triangle on top of a section of the eyes. (See photo.)

You can leave the bag plain and dispense with the “Owl miss you” breast piece. Simply write your students’ names on the bag or the saying: “Owl miss you! I hope your summer’s a real hoot.”

If you want to add that bit of flair, run off the breast note and glue it on the middle of the bag.

Open up the bags, line them up and tuck in candy, a book, bookmarks etc. in an assembly line fashion.

If you don’t want students peeking, staple the top shut.

Click on the link to view/download the Owl Treat Bag patterns.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find useful.

"A new idea is delicate.  It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow." -Charles Brower