The 100th Day Of School!

Its Wednesday afternoon here in North Georgia. The sun is shining, the laundry is washing, the kids are home.... wait....

Welcome to the "GREAT SNOWPOCALYPSE OF 2014" folks! Where a major US city has shut down, leaving people to choose abandoning their cars on major freeways or sleeping in them for the night. There are actually kids and teachers bunkered up in their schools for the night as parents have no way to get to them and buses can't make the trek. 

Oh good grief.

I understand that this is the south and they are not prepared for this kinda weather. I, however, am from the north and welcomed this wonderous display of white, glittery, fluffy JOY! (It helps to know that we were all already home, safe and sound!) I'm pretty sure the delight on our faces explains it all!

Roman making snow angels

Lydia admiring the view

Sophia, my little snow bunny!

Me and my Holly berries!

Fun, right?! 

So that is life THIS week, celebrating the snow fall! But last week we were celebrating THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL! I don't remember celebrating this in school when I was growing up, so I hit up Pinterest and found a ton of cute ideas from other room mom's. Apparently 100 days is a big deal! The kiddos are 100 days smarter and are now about half way done with school! Roman was super excited and everyday came home to tell me what number day we were on. For the 100th day Romans class made T-shirts decorated with 100 objects and then wrote a brief explanation at the bottom.

"I chose this collection because... it looks like all the seasons. -Roman"

For both of the boy's class, I made some 100th Day Of School cookies! I found the idea all over pinterest. Heres my version:

I really need a printer... note for next time: I plan to use one of the many cute labels I found on Pinterest.

For Noah, who is in a very language based/sensory rich class room, I wanted to make some sensory bottles for the boys (theres only boys in his autism classroom). I gathered 100 items of each household item that I could find. I used just plain, empty water bottles and later duct taped the tops shut. 

Here is a list of items I used: 

It wasn't easy to find 100 of each item and then need it to be able to fit through the top of a bottle! 

As we explored the bottles there were different questions we could ask each of the kiddos. This can be modified based on age and where they are developmently. Noah just liked shaking them to compare sound, holding them to compare weight and verbally labeling each bottle. Here are some other ideas:

The 100th Day Of School was fun! I'm a fan!

Now, onto snow day #2:

Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer (Holiday Classroom Party)

I got to do my first party as "Room Mom" for Noah's class! I think it turned out really cute! Here's some of the details:

The theme was Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Each Parent brought in a food item and we had a pretty nice spread! 

For the gift table I brought in a small Christmas tree from home and decorated it with the ornaments I made for each child. On Rudolph's scarf I put each child's name and the year. However the reindeer candy canes proved too tempting for some of the preschoolers! Needless to say some didn't make it home!

For some take home goodies I made these super cute, and actually pretty easy, cookie pops. I know everyone loves to make cake pops, and they are cute, but man are they time consuming! Here's what you would need to make your own Rudolph cookie pops!

So to make these you will need to buy some type of Oreo cookie. Place a popsicle stick inside the filling and dip inside your melted chocolate. Be sure to fill in the edges and around where you inserted the popsicle stick. Now add your broken pretzels for the antlers and mini m&m's for the eyes and nose. Place them on a cookie sheet, on top of some parchment paper and place them in the fridge to set more quickly. I used sandwich baggies to cover the cookies.

Another take home goodie I made for the class were these super cute Rudolph hot cocoa treats:

I used plastic sandwich baggies and filled the corner with a scoop of hot cocoa mix. On top I sprinkled some mini chocolate chips and then placed several marshmallows on top. I tied the top with some brown pipe cleaner "antlers." I glued on some eyes and a red nose and voila!

I made stations in the party room for the kiddos, but for the most part we moved from station to station together its a small class).

We first made Rudolph goodie bags to put our take home treats inside. I brought in my stamp pad and we were able to work on finding the letters to spell our names. I had pre-cut the the ears, nose and antlers for sake of time.

The number one reason I enjoyed doing this? 

That guy, right there^^^

We also made some Reindeer Sugar cookies at another station. So for this I really cant take too much credit! I found a candy kit with the pieces to make Rudolph's face and I bought pre-made sugar cookies from Publix as well as some chocolate frosting.

Noah's came out pretty cute! And he actually made it first instead of eating the pieces! That takes self control, people!

Lastly for our game station we played "Reindeer Ring Toss."

I constructed Rudolph's face and glued it onto a box wrapped in some packing paper. The antlers are cardboard and I had to reinforce them with some wood skewers.  The rings are just some small green paper plates with the inside cut out. Some of the kids tried tossing the rings, others just liked moving them around the antlers and decorating Rudolph. 

Over all I was a great success and I'm pretty sure the kids had fun! 

First class party as room mom: CHECK!