6th Annual New Year's Eve Balloon Activities

Today is my favorite day of activities with the kids. We look forward to this event all year! 

I added a new twist to our 6th Annual New Year's Eve activities: at the top of each hour, the balloon activity is to perform a New Year's Eve tradition from around the world.

12:00 Noon: Scotland and Ireland:bonfire and sparklers (fireworks)
1:00: Colombia: Carry empty suitcases around the house
2:00: Brazil: wear special underwear (red-love, yellow-money, white-peace
3:00: Armenia: bread with good luck wishes kneaded in
4:00: Japanese: buckwheat Solba noodles
5:00: Denmark: jump off chairs to leap into January
6:00: France: eat a stack of pancakes
7:00: Turkey: open front door and sprinkle salt to bring peace and abundance to the house
8:00: Philippines: display 12 round fruits
9:00: Ireland: hit walls with bread
10:00: Dutch: eat olibollen doughnuts
11:00: Czech Republic: cut an apple in half and look at the core to predict the coming year
12:00: Spain: eat 12 grapes

I write the activities on a sheet of paper and cut them up into strips. I place the strips inside a balloon and write the time on the balloon. When the time arrives, the kids take turns popping the balloon to find their next activity.

The other activities to fill in the rest of the night are as follows: 

12:16: do a walking water experiment (fill classes with different colored water. Place a paper towel in the glasses and watch the colors come together.)

12:33: complete the year in review questionnaire

12:47: make bath bombs

1:11: do dry ice experiments (we added dry ice to warm water in champagne glasses, we then added a little soap to each glass. We also carbonated orange kool-aid. The last thing we did was make a giant bubble with the dry ice.) 

1:52: make a penguin sensory bins--using water beads as the base. 

2:08: STEM challenge-build a raft and a slide for the penguin sensory bin

2:50: Rice Krispie Clocks

3:15: Pick "One Word" to concentrate on this year and paint your word on canvas

3:45: Make soft pretzels

4:15: glitter/water/dish soap experiment

4:32: magic milk experiment

5:20: Make shrink key chains of resolutions and visit the concession stand

5:42: Make 2019 cheese bread

6:20: elephant toothpaste experiment in champagne glasses

7:10: make brownie trifles

7:43 make color disappear experiment

8:14: hot chocolate bar

8:30: photo shoot

8:50: 2019 hand print craft

9:10: Chopped food challenge

9:51: burn ice

10:20: Ivory soap challenge

10:44: firework painting with toilet paper roll

11:05: visit the concession stand again

11:20: streamer ball of prizes

11:35: glow ring toss game

We end the night with a balloon drop we hang from the ceiling and a toast at midnight. 

Here are links to our past New Year's Eve parties: 

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-new-years-eve-balloon-countdown.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2016/12/2016-new-years-eve-balloon-countdown.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2015/12/new-years-eve-balloon-countdown-for-kids.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2014/12/2014-new-years-eve-balloon-activity.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-years-eve-balloon-countdown-for-kids.html

Christmas Vacation Photo Board and Movie Night

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation has been a classic Christmas movie experience for my family since it came out in 1989. While this photo board is more for the adults, the kids got a kick out of the snacks we made for the movie night. 

The famous station wagon photo board was a little more for the kids. 

We made Aunt Bethany's Jell-o mold (I put Cheerios under the Jell-o), puppy chow ("Ol'Roy dog food), egg nog (vanilla milkshakes), and I had a tray with different types of jelly and bread sitting out too for the "Jelly of the Month Club". 

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Ornament

Charlie Brown's Christmas is on TV tonight, so our craft is centered around the movie. 

The kids went outside and got pine needle branches off of the tree. We pulled some of the pine needles off so it looked more like Charlie Brown's tree. 

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 Then I used straight popsicle sticks to create a post for the tree. I hot glued that to the inside of the ornament. We hot glued a red jingle bell to one of the branches and added some pieces of blue felt for the base. 

Then I put hot glue on the bottom of the felt and used tweezers to place the tree on the base at the bottom of the ornament. These would be a lot easier if the ornaments opened in the middle, but the tweezers worked for placement. 

We put fake glittery snow in one of the ornaments and put course salt in the bottom of the other. 

Snowman Play Dough

Starting with my microwave play dough recipe, http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2013/03/microwave-play-dough.html, we worked to create these snowmen. 

I added a little white glitter to the mix before microwaving it. 

The kids asked for hats, so I pulled off a chunk of the white dough and colored it with black food gel coloring. 

I gave them a bunch of buttons, Christmas ribbon, pipe cleaners, and google eyes to place on their snowmen. They went outside on a little nature hunt to find twigs for the arms. This was a really fun activity that didn't take long to complete--under 20 minutes. After they were done making snowmen, they turned the dough into pizzas and decorated the pizza with the colored buttons. 

Homemade Kids' Advent Calendar

We have our annual Advent Calendar of Christmas Activities (http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2013/12/christmas-activity-wall_1.html), but the kids love the ones you can buy in the store and find a little trinket every day. We have done the Tsum Tsum, Lego, and Trolls ones, but I couldn't really find one that would work for all the ages of my kids. So, I decided to create one for each of them.

Each kid has their own set of bags. I wrote their name on all of their bags and decorated them with stickers. Matt (the 16-year-old) got K-tape, chapstick, and various types of candy. David (the 10-year-old) got baseball cards--I bought a box that had 10 packs in it, so I split that up-- chapstick, candy, and some other miscellaneous gadgets I found at Wal-Mart. Rachel (the 7-year-old) got some play figurines, chapstick, candy, Ryan squishy toys, bath paints, etc.) I spent $20-$30 on each kid. They were so excited about this when I put the bags around the tree! 

Ralph Breaks the Internet

We can't wait for Ralph Breaks the Internet! Using a tri-fold board I bought from JoAnn Fabrics, I created this with Sharpie and acrylic paint.

Birthday in Heaven Cake

Every year we celebrate Papa Dave's Birthday. This was the cake we came up with this year. He loved doing crossword puzzles, so we thought this was a great memory to share on his birthday. 

Fall Canvas Paintings

2nd Annual: A Birthday for Cow Party

We have been reading Jan Thomas's books for quite a few years. Rachel loves all of them. So last year, while reading A Birthday for Cow, we realized that Cow's birthday was October 17th in the book. Naturally, we thought it would be a good reason to celebrate! (https://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2017/10/jan-thomas-book-birthday-party.html) And, we can't just do it once; it is now a tradition the kids look forward to. David wanted to make the cake look a little more like it does in the book, so we used yellow and pink frosting to decorate it.

And, you can't have cow's birthday without turnips! So, we all created turnips in our home makerspace. They all turned out very different, but we had a blast creating them. We can't wait to have our cake tomorrow! 

How Do You Want To Be Remembered?

While we often tell people not to worry about what others think about them, I don’t think we ever stop caring about the impression we are leaving. As an educator, I am constantly thinking about the impression I am leaving on my students and how I can make a greater impact. I think about the things my students will remember about me and whether I am living up to the person they need me to be.

Who then do my students need me to be? While reflecting on that, I came back to what I remembered about my own teachers. I didn’t remember specific lessons, I didn’t remember the day-to-day operations of a school that educators spend so much time focusing on. While I am sure I learned from some well thought out lesson planning, those are not the things I think about when I remember my school experiences. I remember those teachers that did more and took our learning outside of the textbook and gave me unique experiences. I remember going to a campaign dinner for John McCain. I remember going to Detroit to see plays and visit Greektown. I remember all of the plays I was in throughout elementary and high school. I remember building toothpick bridges and the dry-humor jokes my teachers shared. I remember the Michigan fight song, the read aloud books my teachers read, volunteering at too many events to list specifically, and so many other things like this. When it comes down to it, I remember the things the teachers did to make learning more than just the content they needed to cover. It was the experiences they created that helped shape me into the individual I have become and made the teacher I strive to be. I am confident that the students I went to school with can name the specific teachers that match the things on the list I have provided.

So the question is, how can I create those same experiences that will shape my own students into the people they need to be to thrive in this society. I have to keep pushing myself to be more than just the English content teacher. And the more I do, the more I realize that I learn just as much from doing the extra volunteer projects, the extra clubs we create, the outside-the-box experiences I create. These are the things that make teaching the most rewarding profession in the world. So as we get ready to go back to school, I challenge you to ask yourself, how do you want to be remembered? How can you be the person that changes the direction of a student’s life for the better. How can you create the connections for students that will bring them the future they deserve?

I want to be remembered as the teacher that showed students their strengths, showed them how to capitalize on those strengths, provided opportunities for them to connect with individuals that gave them job opportunities, showed them what it means to help their community and take pride in it. I want them to think of me as a positive person that smiled and brought them up when they needed it. I want them to remember me as someone they could come to and knew I would help them and guide them in any way I could.

On the first day of school this year, I am going to challenge my juniors to think about how they want to be remembered. I have asked all of their teachers (from kindergarten to 10th grade) to send me things they think of when they see the names of these students. Then I will use all of the things the teachers send me to create this assignment: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D_yaucrW5yln71_ye8SNXL9uFWVuUikZDb26_awCGbs/edit?usp=sharing

Instead of just focusing on academic and athletic goals (what most students automatically turn to in goal setting), I believe it's important to set character goals as well. But it's not just important for the students to set these goals...adults can benefit from this process just as much.

Unicorn Birthday Party

Rachel decided she wanted a unicorn birthday party two days before her birthday, so we threw this party together pretty quickly and for pretty cheap! 

I found this unicorn stuffed animal at Dollar General for $4. It made a great cake topper and saved me a lot of work by not having to make a fondant one.  

I made the inside of the cake rainbow. 

I bought a tri-fold poster board from Dollar General for $1. I drew the design with pencil, outlined it with black Sharpie, and then painted it with acrylic paint. 

The backdrop is just tablecloth from the dollar store and balloons. I had string lights so we put them behind the tablecloth. 

Streamers decorated the ceiling.

I printed a picture of each of her previous birthdays and put them on cardstock (colors of the rainbow).

I found a unicorn pinata from Dollar General. The kids just caught a bunch of candy at a parade, so I used that to stuff the pinata. :) 

We decorated more with little toy unicorns I found at Dollar General. We hung them with fishing line. We added a banner and some unicorn crossing signs. 

I found the plates, napkins, tablecloth, and cups from Dollar General. 

Unicorn Photo Board

I drew this with pencil first on a tri-fold board I got from the Dollar Tree. I outlined it with black Sharpie, and then I painted it with acrylic paint. 

2nd Annual Christmas in July Party

Christmas in July is something we all look forward to doing in the middle of summer. This year, we had a day full of activities. 

I always try to find holiday tablecloths and supplies in the after-holiday clearance bins for events like this. We also pulled out our Elf photo board for some picture fun while we watched Elf. 

All of the day's activities were placed in these cups. I just hot glued them to a piece of cardboard. Then I attached a square of tissue paper with a rubber band. 

The kids took turns punching out a cup to find the next activity. The only one that was placed specifically was the top on. (That was their Christmas tree waffles for breakfast.)

We made pipe cleaner circuit trees.

We always play this game at my mom and dad's for Christmas. Grandma heard we were celebrating today, so she brought the kids the supplies over to play the oven mitt game. She wraps up treats and little presents with a lot of tape. One person puts on the oven mitts and tries to open the present. Meanwhile, the next person in line takes two die and rolls until they get doubles. As soon as they get doubles, the person unwrapping must stop and pass on the oven mitts. The person that gets the present open gets to keep the present. 

We had Rudolph cheesebread for lunch. 

Christmas tree cinnamon rolls

Decorated cookies

Made light-up canvas paintings

Played a 5-marker challenge with Christmas pictures. Each person closes their eyes and picks out 5 markers. Those are the only colors they can use to color their picture and they must use all 5 colors. 

We had frozen hot chocolate and Rudolph smores. 

We figured out a Christmas sweater logic puzzle, played "Would You Rather" with Christmas statements, and Christmas charades. 

We also made reindeer toothpaste (Combine one Tbsp of yeast with 1/2 cup warm water. In a big plastic ornament, we added about a Tbsp of dish soap, a few drops of food coloring, a few drops of Peppermint essential oil, and 1/3 cup Hydrogen Peroxide (40)--stronger peroxide can be found at a hair care store. Add the yeast mixture to the soap mixture and the reaction will take place.) 

We finished the night watching Elf.