1-2-3 Come Make A Mother's Day Card With Me

Mother's Day will soon be here.  I designed this sweet tweet writing prompt which makes an adorable card.

Here's how to make one: Run off templates on construction paper.

Cut yellow strips for the legs, the length of the construction paper. I made mine half the width of a ruler.

Make a template for the beaks from an old file folder. Trace and cut out 6 at a time. Set up the various pieces on a table.

Students come to the center and choose their bird color and other pieces. They return to their desk to cut out and assemble the pieces.

Students accordion fold the legs and glue them to the back of their bird.  They cut on the tail lines and fold a few “feathers” up, and glue the beak to the head, drawing a smile and nose dot.

Children fold the left edge of their wing and glue it to the center of their bird. The wing says: "My mom is special and that's something to tweet about!"

So they don’t write outside the wing, children can trace around the wing before they write I love you and sign their name under the wing.

To expedite things, pre-cut the Happy Mother’s Day hang-tags and punch a hole in them. I ran then off on white construction paper and then for more pop, glued them to pink construction paper. You could save the extra steps, and just run the tag off on different colors of construction paper.

Cut lengths of yarn, ribbon or jute to tie the tags to the birds.  Before hand, brainstorm with students why their moms are special.  List these on the board to help with spelling.

Students write why their mom is special on the back of the bird. I ran off an extra template for this so that it looks more finished, as it stands out and also covers the leg tops.

Print off your class composite. Cut students’ photographs in an oval, so that they can glue them to the head on the back of the bird.

When students have completed their prompt, tie their tab to the bird and finish with a bow.  If you have time, have students share their work with their classmates, by reading what they wrote.

Click on the link to view/download the Mother's Day Writing Prompt craftivity. Thanks for visiting today.  I hope your day is something to tweet about!

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward." -Unknown

1-2-3 Come Make Butterflies and Flowers With Me!

Are you studying butterflies or looking for a quick and easy center activity that makes a lovely spring bulletin board or window display, that will brighten up your room?

Wax paper butterflies jazzed up with melted crayons, might be just what you need.

Here’s how to make them:

Run off the body part of the butterfly on a variety of colors of construction paper.

Rough cut them and stack them into color piles so that students can choose their favorite.

While students are working on a tabletop lesson, call them individually to the table.

Students choose a color or colors of crayons that they want to shave.

Students hold the sharpener over a sheet of wax paper big enough to be able to trace 3 hearts on.

You need it larger so that when the shavings melt, they do not run outside of the wax paper.

Make sure the wax paper is on a mini ironing board or a folded towel.

When the child has enough shavings sprinkled around the paper, lay a second piece of wax paper on top.

Using an iron on the lowest setting, slowly melt the shavings. Be careful that the pools do not run off the paper.

Let cool a few seconds and have the child step to the side to trace the heart template onto the wax paper.

Once done, she takes her paper back to her seat and cuts out the hearts and glues them to the back of her butterfly’s thorax.

When they are done, they can bring their butterfly up to you, so that you can give them glue dots for their wiggle eyes and rhinestones that they have picked out.

These look fabulous on a window. Simply put a small piece of folded tape on the thorax and stick.

Click on the link to view/download the wax paper butterfly activity

If you don’t want to mess with melting crayons, squares of tissue paper attached with
Elmer’s glue also look awesome.

There are 12 different templates in the wax paper and tissue packet.

These projects are simple, inexpensive, quick, and also look fantastic hanging in a window.

My students loved making them and always asked to do more than one.

Tape them to a sheet of construction paper as a "flip up" and you have a "way cool" greeting card for Mother’s Day or whatever.

Click on the link to view/download the Monthly Wax Paper Art Projects

Thanks for visiting today. Feel free to PIN anything you think others might find helpful.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” –Maya Angelou