Adorable Holiday Gifts for My Students

        Each year our preschool teachers make gifts that we give to all the students at our holiday program. I love the VERY simple, inexpensive light up snowman ornaments we made this year. These have been all over Pinterest but I'm not sure where they started.
        For each ornament we used a battery operated tea light (from the Dollar Store), a small piece of thick holiday scrapbook paper cut in the shape of a hat, a small pompom,  and 2 pieces of ribbon (each about 4" long).  You will also need a black permanent marker and a hot glue gun.

 
We tied a knot in the middle of the wider piece of ribbon (for the scarf) and made a loop with the narrow ribbon (to hang the ornament) .  We added face details with the marker (and put our school name and the date on the back of the hat) and then hot glued the ribbons and paper hat to the tea light.  When it is lit, the nose is orange! So cute!

I also made little elf ornaments for our classroom tree.  They were also very simple! After they decorated our tree, we used them as gift tags on the hand print calendars we made for our families.

I started by taking a picture of each child wearing an elf hat with their hands together above their heads (or just in a silly position if they preferred). 

I then cut the student out of the picture, laminated the picture, punched a small hole in the top and threaded a pipe cleaner with a bell on it to make a loop to hang the elf on the tree.  The kids love their silly elf ornaments (and I predict they will like them even more in future years when they look back at how cute and silly they were in pre-K).

Finally, if you'd like directions for the beautiful picture ornaments we made for the kids last year, click here.

If your looking for a really fun holiday idea for your classroom or home, check out our life-size gingerbread house.

I am linking up with 3rd Grade Thoughts' Ho Ho Holiday Gifts for Your Students linky party.

First Day of School Idea

On the first day of school last year, I took a minute to speak with each child in my class.  I sat next to the child and showed them the metal board that I had bought at Target.  I told them it said "Hello my name is" and that I would like them to write their name in the white area.  I then took a picture of the child holding the sign. That first night I put all of the children's pictures and pictures of my assistant and myself on our classroom website.  The whole project was super easy but it gave me a quick little check on where each student was (at least as far as writing their name and answering a few questions about themselves and their summer).  It was also very appreciated by the parents who could look up pictures of their child's classmates when they were trying to put a face with a name.   

Our classroom website (we use myclassroomconnection.com) where I post a newsletter and photos every week.

It also ended up as part of my "end of year keepsake" that I gave the kids.  I used CollageIt to make a collage of all of the pictures.

I made a second collage of pictures I took at the very end of our school year. I asked each child what they wanted to be when they grew up.  I wrote their answer on the red back of the "Hello my name is board."  I should have let the children write their answers themselves (or at least sign the board) but I was doing this at the very last minute (second to last day ?!?) and was afraid I wouldn't get through everyone.  I made a second collage and then laminated the two collages together.

Both the parents and  kids liked seeing how they had grown over the year and I am sure the laminated keepsake will be fun to look back on in future years.