Third Grade Christmas Party

Christmas Dice Game
We started the party off with a game.  They played in groups of 4.  We gave them one die, a cup with small marshmallows and a paper Santa print out.  The beard had different numbers (1-6) on it.   They took turns rolling the dice and when they rolled a number they put a marshmallow on the number.  When they rolled all the numbers and Santa's beard was full, they got a prize.

 This gave us some time to set up for our next activities: 

Photo Booth
And we did a photo booth, since they spend so much time together all school year I thought some fun pictures together would be fun: Even Kyla's teacher got in on the pictures. 

I made the photo props using paper and my Silhouette cameo.  

 Christmas Sugar Cone Trees
 We let the kids all decorate a sugar cone to look like a tree.

We ended with cupcakes and Capri Suns that our parent helpers brought in.

First Grade Party

I was just a helper for this party and took on the game, but I snapped some pictures, so I will share some other parts of the party, too.

Game: (my part) 
Pin the nose on Rudolph

Treat Activity:  Sugar Cone Trees

Craft:  painted and glittered cd ornaments

Sand and Shells Ornament

Since we vacationed as a family at Bear Lake this year, I made an ornament with some sand and shells we collected there. 

Christmas Teacher Gifts

Christmas gifts for teachers this year.  I personalized a small cutting board and let the kids pick an apple from the Chocolate Factory.  I bagged the apples in a colored red and green bags then placed it on the cutting board and cellophaned it together.  I let the kids decorate their own tag and address it to their teachers. 

Vinyl on Gift Bags

I found that vinyl makes for a quick and easy way to dress up a gift bag:

Little Nativity

Made one for me and a few for gifts:

Idea from: Dandelions and Dust Bunnies

2013 Letters to Santa

Letters to Santa this year, made simple with this free printable. 

Printable found here.

Favorite Things Christmas Party

I have wanted to do a favorite things party of quite some time, so I finally did it---and I did it Christmas themed.  It was so much fun!!  There was SO much fun and laughter.  13 moms, away from their kids in a festive environment.  And it was just a party, no selling things or fundraising or pressure.  Just great fun! So here's what I put together:

Invites:
Simple, just printed them out on my printer....

Banner: (and of course the house if decorated with Christmas and a huge tree in the room, so I didn't need much more for decorations)

Refreshments:
Veggies and my Favorite dip
Fruit and one of my favorite dips
A festive Holiday drink
And Chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese peppermint frosting

And of course the exchange of favorite things:

**I was going to take a picture of the table when everyone had their items on it (and also of the party itself, but I'll admit I was having a great time and forgot)  But there were some great things!

Prize:
Whipped up some festive cutting boards/trivets to give as prizes to the 2 with the highest points (and one went to the person with the lowest points...just to shake things up)

Seriously thinking about having another Christmas Party next year!!!

Grinch Hand Sanitizer

We went a little Grinch crazy this year, but my kids were excited to have this fun hand sanitizer sitting around :

Grinch Mugs

Love how these turned out!

And then the kids wanted Grinch mugs, too....

Santa Cutting Board

I vinyled this cutting board for Christmas.  Now to decide how I want to use it...simple decoration, serving plate, trivet....

Little Red Bucket

Found this red, metal bucket at the Dollar Tree.  It was plain red, so I added some snowflake and "JOY" to it for Christmas.

Christmas Sandwich Containers

School lunches got a little festive:

HTV bling

I added an HTV necklace to this dress for a little girl's birthday:

Thankful for our Teachers

There's been lots of talk about things we are grateful for at our house this month.  One of the things we are grateful for are the teachers at school.  We have had a pretty good year, so I let my kids fill out the acorn card telling their teachers something about their teachers they are grateful for, then attached  some fun leaves with the card to some sparkling cider.

FHE Thanksgiving

We did some fun activities for FHE this month that focused on Gratitude and Thanksgiving.  I loved how the kids' prayers changed over the month as we talked about things to be thankful for and how we should express our gratitude. 

Paint Sample Turkeys: The kids thought of things that they were grateful for and wrote/drew them on the "feathers" 

We also found this simple and fun game and played it one night for Family Home Evening:
Game from The Moffatt Girls

Star Wars Birthday Gift

Nathan got invited to a super awesome Jedi Training Birthday party.  He came home with a Jedi costume, Pool Noodle sword and certificate of completion along with his own little paper R2D2 he'd paper crafted at the party.  Talk about an awesome mom at that house! 

Well I got my Silhouette busy and made a few star wars items:

I threw in some glow sticks and Nathan colored a Star Wars card to complete the gift. 

Wooden Fall Leaves

They are incredibly simple, but they look great with my Thanksgiving decor. 

Wooden Block Pumpkins

I had a great girls' crafting day with my mom, sister and sister-in-law.  I love when we get together and have great conversations while creating cute decor for our homes!!  This time we worked on fall decor.

Turkey Toes and Fingers

Had  a little Turkey fun with Kyla over the weekend:

Colored CTR rings

Kyla's been asking for a white ctr ring....so I finally made a few new colored rings:

Classroom Party Drinks {First Grade}

I signed up to be a room helper for Nathan's class.  I got the privilege of providing the drinks, so we went shopping for some fun drinks and found these cute mini sodas at Walmart.  {I had some other cute ideas, but I let Nathan pick since it was his party}  Nathan decided this is what he wanted and I grabbed some orange and grape sodas.  I was able to fit 24 in this cauldron, making it a fun way to serve them up at the party:

Halloween Classroom Party {3rd Grade}

So I signed up to be room mom {again} for Kyla's class.  Our school tries to have two moms in charge of the parties and 3 helpers.  This year I am working with a terrific mom that loves to party :)   Planning was fun and the class was fantastic!! We decided to have a carnival style party and it worked great.  The kids wondered from activity to activity and had a great time.  Then we stopped for treats and drinks while we tallied the votes for best costume and found the winners of the estimation game.  Here's a look at our party:

Games: Ring Toss, Bean Bag Toss, Pumpkin Bowling, and Build a Skeleton Race

 Contests: Estimating and Best Costume

 *Winners took home the jar of candy. 

*We gave trophies to the top 3 votes (the other room mom found the tombstones at The Dollar Store, I added vinyl "Best Costume" to make them a trophy:

Craft: Spider Webs
*We used paper plates, yarn and spiders to make some spider webs.  I also brought some stamps along so they could stamp the paper plate if they wanted.   It was a little time consuming, but it worked. 

Treats: Chocolate tomb cake with chocolate skeletons. 
*This was assigned out to a helper parent.  We let them pick the treat and bring it.  They went all out and had different color skeletons and sprinkles in those cute tomb cakes!  It was a big hit with the kids!

Drink: Juices
*Assigned out to a mom.  They were little jugs of juice with mini straws.  I didn't get a picture...

6 year old {boy} Halloween Party

Invitations: 
I used my silhouette to create these invites (file from Sil. store)

Drink:  Vampire Blood Floats

Treat:  Donuts on a String Game
Messy, but entertaining....

Games:

Science Experiments:
Ghost  Balloon 
1 Tbsp of baking soda in the balloon, water bottle half filled with vinegar.  Attach balloon to bottle and pour the vinegar in....

Flying Ghosts
Playing with static.  Balloon rubbed on hair to pick up tissue paper ghosts. 

Craft: Skeleton Puppets