Kindergarten Holiday Party!

We work right up to December 23rd this year so these past couple of weeks have been so hectic! Planning, prepping, holiday parties, Christmas shopping, parties, etc. AH!!  My go to party planning stop is always Oriental Trading! Makes planning super easy and they ship quickly! 

I ordered all of my ceiling decor from Oriental Trading.  I ordered lanterns and garland.  I also ordered their roll of table cloths.  I was able to cover 6 tables and probably still have enough to use for a couple of years.  I can even use it again at our Valentine's Day celebration which is nice! Or even Apple Day! (These thoughts are all just coming to me, haha)

At our party we made these delicious Christmas trees! 

To hold all of the tree decor I used these little Christmas trays from Oriental Trading.

We also made these old school ornaments. I know I made one of these when I was little too!

 If you look in the image above, you can see the reindeer necklaces that we made. These were a huge hit! Oriental Trading has all of the beads and string needed to make the cute center!

Look how much they give you on these awesome table cloth rolls! These also fit write into the plastic storage bins for easy storage 'til next year!

I wasn't able to upload my Photo Booth pictures yet, but Oriental Trading has amazing backdrops and Photo Booth props! 

I ordered enough elf hats for everyone to take home too! They LOVED them!

I can't wait for Christmas to get here already!!

Happy Holidays to all!

Halloween Party [Planning]

This year our Halloween party falls on a half day of school so we are going to start our party first thing in the morning with some pumpkin fruit cups and yummy monster donuts!

I ordered these cute pumpkin cups from Oriental Trading.  They are pretty big and can fit a good portion for each student.  We are going to fill them with assorted fruit, but they would be great for popcorn if you're doing an afternoon party!

LOVE these donuts! I have said I wanted to do these every year since seeing them on Pinterest.  Can't wait for the kids to see them!

Our school allows our room moms to ask for a $5 donation from each child for the Halloween party.  This is obviously optional, but with the money we are going to purchase a small pumpkin for each child.  Then, I ordered these cute pumpkin decorating kits from Oriental Trading for the students to use.  There are TONS of different options--faces, bats, witches, cats, etc.  They are all foam stickers so they are super easy to assemble and stick very well!

 While I was shopping on Oriental Trading I came across these cute pumpkin boxes.  The box comes with the foam stickers and directions. I am all for easy and fun at my parties so I thought this would be great! It's not messy and it is a cute keepsake for the kids to take home!

Some of the other centers that I have planned are:

-Painting Fall Suncatchers (from Oriental Trading)

-Making popcorn 'spooky hands'

-Make a Halloween foam picture frame (a class mom is going to take our picture in our costumes, get them developed for us that day, and we will add them into the frames-SO nice!)

Then, I had to order this pin the nose on the pumpkin game! My students had to much fun at the beginning of the year playing this at the end of our Monster Unit, that I just had to play it again with them! We will play this at the end of our party as a whole group so that my parent volunteers can start cleaning the centers up!

On a different note, did you know Oriental Trading had Halloween costumes?  I would have never thought of looking there, but I must say, their costumes are awesome!! They shipped unbelievably quickly and we have been playing with them ever since! Why wait till Halloween?

We have Flash and Shopkins Cupcake here!

 And I just had to order this Princess Lea costume for my niece who loves StarWars! She was actually going to see Disney on Ice a week or two ago and said she knew exactly what princess she would wear to Disney on Ice...Princess Lea! (not quite Disney, but we can go with it!)

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Hello Yellow! [Classroom Pencil Sharpener]

When I saw that Classroom Friendly Supplies had a brand new YELLOW pencil sharpener, I knew I had to have one! Yellow is my color!

I already have a blue sharpener from them in my classroom and we love it! 

I first bought my classroom friendly sharpener back in 2013,  and was blown away by how quiet it was and how awesome it worked.  I had to teach my 'pencil helpers' how to use it because it isn't as easy as just sticking the pencil into an electric sharpener.  But, after one demonstration my children knew exactly what to do. 

 Over the years my electric sharpener, that I spent close to $80 on, has stopped working and my awesome Classroom Friendly sharpener is still as good as new!  

I also love how it sharpens the pencils so nicely. My electric sharpener would occasionally sharpen the wooden part of the pencil so then the children were only able to use the lead on one side...the other side was just wood and didn't write at all (do you know what I'm talking about??). 

This is definitely a must have for every classroom!

 You can find this sharpener HERE.