March | 2014 | green bean kindergarten

I put my teacher skills and extra school supplies into my son’s Minecraft birthday party! It turned out super fun and my whole family had fun creating everything. The best part…the decorations were all very inexpensive, Pinterest and blog inspired! I am also not a baking type of mom-and I somehow managed to make the cupcakes resemble a “creeper!”

I made the bags, below with black electrical tape. I just snipped squares and put them together.

I made this photo booth back-drop with that big butcher paper on a roll. Then I cut out squares of the other colors to make the clouds, tree, sun and inverted grass block. I then taped it to the wall.

This little piggy was made with pink construction paper. We used green streamer for the tail, for the game “pin the tail on the minecraft pig.” That was what I just happened to have lying around, nearby! Haha!

A few weeks ago, my dad and husband trimmed the crepe myrtle trees and saved the branches. The kids found the piles and took it upon themselves to “craft” teepee’s. Our little ones are just so creative. Look-its girls against boys! The branches actually held up with electrical tape. I just sat back and watch their creativity and team work!

Here is our fun little food table. I found the food tents at: printables.com (or maybe it was printable.com)….for free! We used strawberries for “red stone,” green m&m’s for “slime balls,” oreo cookies for “coal,” rolo chocolates for “gold” and yellow apples for “golden apples.”

The kids ended up entertaining themselves with nerf gun games outside, outdoor chalk, bike riding, teepee building and stick gathering. I am glad that I didn’t plan too many activities – they ended up being better party planners than me!

Pretend Play with Pizza Hut is a fun way to add pizazz to your classroom! Some of my students still had trouble learning the letter “P” and it’s sound. So, with Spring around the corner, I decided to spruce up our classroom Kitchen and transform it into Pizza Hut!

This goes along great with our shapes lesson, as well -and- it encourages good social skills and peer interaction!

During the first week, I invited other school staff to pop into our classroom and “place their pizza order.” They modeled correct and complete sentences for the students. It is so meaningful (and cute!): The child who takes the order, must ask “What would you like to order?” Then, he has to use the paper ingredients to remember and make what the customer ordered. This is a great way to build story sequencing skills!!!!!

I made this Center using the big red roll paper for the Pizza Hut roof. For the wall menu, I simply printed signs that I made from google images of each Pizza type.

The Pizza’s are just paper plates with a red construction paper circle taped on top. The pizza toppings are cut paper, sorted into bowls (rectangle green bell peppers, cheese, pepperoni).

Next, they will get to practice their counting skills with the money I have added!

My students also had fun making pizza in class. This was a great lesson in sequencing and I think it helped a great deal in sharpening story retelling skills. As a whole group we worked together to put these cards in order as we discussed the steps in making real pizza. Then, we made real pizza, beginning with making pizza dough and all the way to flattening the dough, placing toppings, baking it and then eating it! Afterwards, the children cut apart the picture cards below and glued them in the correct sequence.