Thursday, May 18, 2017

Kindergarten End of the Year Party

We had an absolute BLAST celebrating the end of our kindergarten year with a carnival party! When the idea of a carnival party came to me I knew I wanted to make it fun, but easy for me to plan.  I am in the middle of packing up my entire classroom so I enlisted the parents for party planning help!
I sent an email out to parents asking for any party volunteers. I got a pretty good response so I asked those parents to come in after school one day for a quick meeting.
Before the meeting I searched around on Pinterest for some carnival game ideas and I printed all of those ideas out to create visuals for the parents.  At the meeting I asked each parent to sign up for a carnival booth.  I also let them know that they would be in charge of their booth and asked if they wouldn't mind making a sign for their booth as well.  They were all more than willing and some even volunteered to buy and create the entire booth on their own. Of course I said YES!! 
The 'bean bag toss' booth was an easy one to create. I had these bowls from the Dollar Store already and had brought in bean bags that I had at home. In the middle of each bowl there were points written ranging from 100 to 500.  The kids earned tickets while they played (we didn't keep track of how many tickets we gave out because we knew at the end that it wouldn't matter--all kids would collect prizes no matter how many tickets they 'won')
One parent made this cute 'Guess How Many' booth
Students wrote down how many starbursts and hershey kisses they thought were in the jar.  At the end of the carnival we announced the winner!
At our 'Clothespin Drop' booth students had to stand on a chair (don't worry a parent was right there) and try to drop a clothespin into a mason jar.  Notice how we also gave all of the students an awesome clown nose to wear at the party?!
What is a carnival without a Photo Booth?
This backdrop with the photo booth props are just too cute!!
I always like to have a 'cooking center' at our class parties so for the carnival we made clown cupcakes!
Of course the kids had a blast eating these.
One of my parents went all out for this 'Water World' booth. The booth was complete with a disco light and music too!
Students had to toss a ping pong ball into a tiny, water filled jar.  They also could go fishing for ducks in the little pool.
For the face painting booth I sent an email home to parents prior to the party asking permission to do face painting and we even had some cute carnival temporary tattoos from Oriental Trading. All of my parents were okay with it so we included it in our carnival.
We definitely wanted to print out options for this booth; otherwise, you just never know what kids may come up with! Students had to pick something from the board and we had two amazing moms painting faces.  I even gave it a go on two of the kids! It was fun!
This duck matching game I found on Oriental Trading and knew it would be perfect for the carnival.
Students were able to choose two ducks in hopes for them to have a matching number on the bottom.
We had a ring toss booth.
Then for our last booth, one of our moms made this amazing 'Angry Birds' booth.
Students used a toy bow and arrow to knock down the Angry Birds house (just like the iPad game I guess?).
The boys didn't want to leave this booth!
Throughout the party the students had little popcorn boxes that they used to collect their carnival tickets. At the end of the party they were able to cash in their tickets for some fun prizes!
The students were so happy that they got to go home with these goodie bags!
My class had our end of the year carnival party with the class next-door as well.  This allowed us to have more volunteers, gather more donations from parents, and cut down the costs for us to purchase party supplies.
Click on any of the below links to find some of the Oriental Trading items that I used at our party:
Carnival prizes and other parent donations
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Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Easy Mother's Day Gifts

I am always on the search for awesome and easy Mother's Day gift ideas! I would LOVE for you to share you ideas in the Kindergarten Smiles Facebook group HERE.
Last year I bought wooden frames from the dollar store.  I let each child paint the frame in a solid color, then they added another color as the 'polka dots' with their pointer finger. 
I took each child's picture with this cute little sign I found at Hobby Lobby, but you can also make it on a chalk board! Then, I printed the pictures out, added them to the frames, and wrapped them up!
I know that I would love to have this frame in my home, so I know other parents will enjoy it too ;)

These notecards I have made in the past and decided to make them again this year.  You can find the complete tutorial on my blog HERE or HERE.
These are such a simple, but super cute and useful gift too! 
I would love for you to share your Mother's Day craft photos with me over on Facebook.