Mother’s Day Project

Aren’t these adorable magnets?  Last year I made some refrigerator magnets using cute scrapbook paper and glass “gems” I bought at Michael’s Craft Store.

These gems come in two sizes, but I only used the smaller ones.  I think these larger ones would work well too!  For my project I used a scrapbook circle punch and glued that picture on the flat side of the glass gem.  My creative daughter in law, Sheri, made this project much more adorable by using pictures that my grandchildren drew instead of the scrapbook paper!

First she traced some circles and asked the children to draw a simple picture inside.

 

Then she laid the pictures on her printer/scanner and reduced them to the size of the glass gems.

She used Modge Podge to glue each picture onto the flat side of a glass gem.  These need to dry well before moving onto the next step.

We both tried to hot glue the magnets onto the back of the pictures but found that this strong glue works much better.  An adult really needs to do this step, children should not use this glue.

You might want to set these on waxed paper or parchment paper to dry, just in case there is a drip of glue that might stick to other paper.  Also you have to space them apart to dry because these magnets tend to stick together!

Sheri found the cute flowers at a craft store too, they came in different colors and sizes.  When she glued a flower behind each magnet they were even cuter!  They look so cute on my refrigerator!

Hope you all find ways to celebrate the mothers in your life, and have a wonderful Mother’s Day yourself!

 

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Last Minute Mother’s Day!

Here are a couple more last minute gift ideas for Mother’s Day!

When I did this project with my class I just had one flower on the page and we used a 9 x 12 paper.  For my daughter in law I included all 3 handprints!  I hope she likes it!

I loved making “hugs” that the children could give their moms – in case their mother needed a hug while they were away at school!

I folded large paper 6 x 18 inches, then I traced each child’s hand and arm.  They cut it out and added a poem.  I didn’t have a sample so I simulated!  To send it home we folded the arms at the “elbows.”

Here is the poem we used – if it doesn’t fit on the heart template you make, just reduce or enlarge it on the copy machine – sorry I didn’t keep the original!  

Printable poem!

poem

Whether you have your own children at home or not, I wish you all a wonderful Mother’s Day!  In a special way all Kindergarten teachers are Moms to their kids!  And that is what I miss!

Mother’s Day!

Along with a few other gifts, my Kindergartners always made a special Mother’s Day Book.  It was always fun for me, and the moms, to see their answers to the questions in this book.  

Sometimes I reduced these pages and made the book 1/2 size – my Kindergartners were used to writing on smaller paper by this time of year.  They drew a picture of their mother in this oval.

I tried to spread out working on this book because I found the children wrote more, and did a better job if they didn’t do too much at one time.  If they couldn’t read the words they used the picture cues to remember what the page said, and to be sure they were working on the right page.

When curriculum first started requiring children to write sentences I often made a book like this with a sentence starter – My mother likes to eat __________.   This encouraged the children to only write one word or a short phrase.  Also, some kids who didn’t remember what the sentence starter said re-wrote the same words.  I found that when I asked a question instead of using a sentence starter the children got practice writing a complete sentence to answer.  Some kids also learned that they could look at some of the words in the question to help with their sound spelling, which reinforced the reading too!

Here is a printable copy of the book:

Mother’s Day Book

We made several other presents too.  One of my favorites was a corsage, made from 2 coffee filters.  The children colored on them with washable markers, making sure to get color on the outside edges too.  Then we misted them with a squirt bottle and when they dried, folded both them up together into a flower shape.  You can get stretchy green floral tape at Walmart or Michaels to wrap around the bottom, and corsage pins.  At our school children got clear plastic boxes when they ordered “grab and go” lunch – and we used those boxes to hold the corsages.  I loved thinking of moms wearing these paper flowers to church on Mother’s day!

We also made trivets out of 4 x 4 inch tiles from Home Depot or Lowes.  The kids used paint pens to draw on their tile, then I sprayed them with clear spray and put either felt or spongey stick on circles on the bottom.

These were both inexpensive projects that were easy for the children to do.  I have a couple more things to share, but I need Owen’s help!

Thanks for reading – I’d love to hear from you!   What do you do with your class for Mother’s Day?