Spring has SPRUNG Bunny Craft

My pattern for this adorable spring bunny with accordion legs is available in my TPT Store!



Click here for the pattern, or scroll through my TPT store's widget near my blog banner.

The pieces for this cute medium sized bunny can be printed onto construction paper, cut apart and assembled by your students OR you can cut out construction paper using the measurements provided for more of an assembly-only activity. Cutting instructions include cutting off corners to make edge rounder/curved and cutting oval, circle, or triangle shapes from a simple square, which you can easily model to students.

I've included measurements for a LARGE bunny as well (or you can enlarge the printable template as large as you'd like)- it's almost as tall as a kindergartner!

Construction paper color combos I used with my students include:

white bunny, tan details, pink nose, black marker/crayon eyes
black bunny, light blue details, pink nose, white crayon eyes
tan bunny, pink details, pink nose, black marker/crayon eyes

I imagine solid colored bunnies with patterned scrapbook paper would also look darling!




Let me know if you decide to make these cute bunnies- I'd love to see them!

~Michaele~

P.S. It seems my egg shaped bunny ALWAYS gets pinned each spring- remember this one?

Spring Chick Art

Maybe she's born with it... maybe it's Maybelline:

Ha!

Beans in Bags

Fess up: how many of you are having students dampening lima beans in paper towels and clear baggies?

It's that time of the year.

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We've Got the Whole World: Earth Day Project

Yesterday I shared some of my Stars' "flower power" recycled art with you.  Today I'd like to show you a coloring/painting/writing project:

Using a coloring page found here, I asked our copier secretary to enlarge the Earth onto a 12 X 18 piece of white construction paper.  After students colored the land and water with crayons,

they used black watercolor to darken the rest of the page:

Once the watercolor had dried, our assistant painted the Star's hands red, placing them on either side of our big blue marble.

 The Stars then copied "I've got the whole world in my hands."

As each student finishes, our Earth Day project joins our Flower Power recycled art in the hallway. 

What a fun, gallery-style display for April!

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Would you like to share your own Earth Day/Recycling project?  Link us up in the comments!

Flower Power: A Recycling Project

As we learn about reducing, reusing and recycling, I've invited the Super Stars and their families to create spring flowers using materials found at home... materials that might otherwise be tossed out with the trash.  Take a peek at some of the creations brought to school so far:

Cardboard, plastic, scrap fabric...

Bottle caps and glass stones were added to a tough tote lid... 

Magazine pages, plastic lids and cardboard tubing filled a plastic bottle vase...

Plastic cups and a bottle were painted and then framed in a cardboard lid...

The flowers are sharing our hallway bulletin board with our Earth Day painting project.

Family collaboration makes this a fun activity for the weekend, but it would also be easy to add materials to a creative construction zone or other crafty center in the classroom as well.  Families can donate the materials that their students enjoy using:

~ cardboard

~ plastic lids

~ bottlecaps (decide in advance if you'd like to accept all bottle caps or only those from non-alcoholic items)

~ bottles

~ yarn

~ paint

~ newspaper or extra book order forms/ scratch paper

~ scrap fabric

~ cardboard tubes

~ cereal boxes or frozen food item boxes/ trays

~ plasticware

What kinds of artwork do your students enjoy creating using recyclable materials?

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Visit me again tomorrow when I'll show you our Earth Day painting project!

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Today being April 1, my Super Stars had fun fooling me!


Student 1: "Yeah, so Mrs. Sommerville? I can totally speak Dolphin now."

Student 2: "Mrs. Sommerville- today is my 18th birthday. I'm supposed to tell you I'm ready to move out and get a job."

Student 3: "School's been called off Mrs. Sommerville! You can leave right now and go shopping!"

Student 4: "Uh, Mrs. Sommerville, don't freak out. The world ran out of coffee."

Did your students try to ~fool~ you today? If so, share with us over on Twitter:

#kindergartenaprilfool

Tutorial Tuesday: Bunny Crafts

Here's a quick list of link-ups to super cute bunny crafts:

Cardboard Tube Bunny Family at Crafts by Amanda

Bunny Ears Tutorial by East Coast Mommy

Envelope Bunnies by Martha Stewart

Bunny Windsock Craft by Mommyapolis

A painted bunny art lesson over at Deep Space Sparkle

... and a link to one of my previous blog posts with measurement details for egg-shaped bunnies!

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Make sure to take a look at each site's other sweet spring crafts too!

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Spring-is-on-its-Way Giveaway!

Years ago as a teacher in Alaska, my students and I enjoyed working together to identify the seasons: autumn, winter, spring and summer.

Autumn in Alaska is when the leaves on the trees change color and fall, the temperature takes a noticeable dip and stays there, and the scent in the woods is much less green and ever more cranberry-ish.  If it's a rainy year, it's muddy.  Autumn lasts about two weeks, so try not to blink or you'll miss it.

Winter is rather straightforward and long-lived.  It's snowy, cold, and dark.  Each morning as the hair in your nostrils frosts over, you catch the distinct smell of wood burning stoves.  You might hear the slow crunch of tracks being made by a moose in your backyard.  Block scheduling at school includes an extra ten minutes before the bell, before and after recess, and before dismissal for students to either take off and store all of their cold weather gear or to put it all on before stepping outside.  Daylight stays on the horizon for a very short period of time each day, so try not to blink or you'll miss it.  Winter can stretch from October to March.

Spring can begin in March, but sometimes holds off its solid start until April or even early May.  Despite the snow melting and warmer temps, people know not to bother washing their vehicles no matter how mud covered they might become.  Students alter their layers of clothing, swapping out snowpants for jeans or even shorts though it's still only twenty degrees above zero.  With the sun's return, everyone purchases sunglasses and watches where they walk or drive to avoid puddles, lakes, and potholes.  You won't be inclined to blink but you'll certainly be squinting as you await summer, noticing the buds on trees and the tiny spots of green popping up amongst the rotten slush-ice and debris that needs to be cleared away on an annual clean up day.  Summer is just around the corner.

When summer arrives, mosquitoes have hatched from every water source imaginable, and bare legs, arms, necks and faces wear more bug repellant than sunblock.  Students wear shorts and light shirts to school, teachers wear sandals and prep their homes for summer visitors, and many families give their green thumbs the go-ahead to dig in the dirt, plant seeds, or arrange glorious plant and flower varieties in hanging baskets, whiskey barrels, or tires left lining the driveway.  Green explodes overnight.  Aluminum foil covers many bedroom windows to block out the twenty-plus hours of sunlight.  Neighbors might mow their fast growing yards at nine or ten o'clock at night, and children are tan from all of the time spent outdoors.  If it's a rainy year, it's muddy.  The school year ends in May, just in time for everyone to soak up as much sunlight as possible before autumn returns after the solstice.

My Stars in Oz observe a more evenly distributed progression of the seasons.  Though school begins in August, it's still rather summer-ish in its warmth and appearance.  Fall begins in October, and winter can be finicky when deciding whether or not to provide students and teachers with snow days right before or immediately after winter vacation.  Spring is one of our favorite seasons because with the return of warmer weather comes flower blooms on many trees, worms crawling across sidewalks, and the promise of Easter egg hunts on freshly mown lawns.  Summer is hot, and can deliver a bounty of produce from the garden, along with mandating several hasty moves to tornado shelters and safe rooms.  

What observations do your students make as they track the change of seasons?  

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To welcome the return of spring, Carson-Dellosa is celebrating Very Hungry Caterpillar Day with a giveaway!  Check out the prize pack below:

To enter, please leave a comment *on this post only* telling me which season is YOUR favorite.  Please remember that I must have a way to contact you if you are the winner, so either leave a link to your own blog or an email address with your comment.  I'll pick a winner on March 30!


Good luck!

Easter and Spring Crafty Links

Easter is next week, so here are the links to some of my past bunny projects:

Bunny Buddies (using footprint tracings to make bunnies):


Egg-Shaped Bunnies...



...as well as my post on Egg-Ceptional Egg tracing:



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Let's not forget links from other great sources in BlogLand:

~ Make and Takes recycles frosting containers to make bunny buckets (she planted wheatgrass in one here)...

~ Petite Planet shares a tutorial on how to make boo-boo bunnies...

~ Green Lily offers printable templates for very cute bunny and chick paper bag decorations (though students would probably love to use scrap paper and cut the bunny and chick details freehand while at their art or fine motor center)...

... and next to eating Peeps, making a cute Peeps Bunny Bunting (inedible) seems like a fun way to celebrate spring!


(photo, idea, tutorial and creativity all by Dana at Made)

Show and Share Thursday: Vera Bradley...an Addiction

Hello, my name is Michaele, and I'm an addict. A Vera Bradley Addict.



What's surprising is that I wasn't aware of the extent of my addiction until today, as I went through the hutch in our dining room to find Easter-ish or Spring-ish place mats or tablecloths for this weekend.







I kept pulling out set after set of VB place mats and realized that there were still *more* sets packed away with the Christmas decor! In fact, the photos I'm sharing today don't include my VB tablecloths, napkins, table runners, purses/handbags, or clothing items... and the sets shown above aren't ALL, since I'm using several sets in our barrister bookcases and throughout the living room and kitchen for spring accents:







I'm guessing my love of Vera Bradley table decor is linked to my love for quilts- each of these place mats are quilted with a coordinating fabric on the back. I'm always on the look-out for retired patterns and colors on Ebay, Petit Point, Black Walnut, and Maison Blue especially:



What's not to love? They're machine washable, patterned enough to hide a small stain here or there, and instantly dress up a table or other surface beautifully. With a toddler and busy family, EASE and FUNCTIONALITY are essentials in our home, but in case you were wondering, no, I simply cannot resist PRETTINESS.

No, no, I'm NOT a Vera Bradley salesperson or store representative- though I wish I were if it would get me a discount on the new line of RUGS available online! Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

If you'd like something a bit more romantic, "foofy" even for table decor, try April Cornell, another favorite of mine!

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Easter/Spring Projects:

~Kelli at There's No Place Like Home has made some beautiful egg-shaped pocket cards and walks you through, step by step...

~ Lisa at Celebrate Creativity in All its Forms shows us how to decorate a new vase, just in time for those spring bouquets, though I think I'll use her techniques and advice on a few storage containers I've been saving up lately for my desk...

~ Terry at Bent Objects expresses some Easter humor with a chocolate bunny, some raisins and Raisinets, a nice change from the deluge of Peep dioramas that many others have produced this year...

~ Laura Rebecca's Kitchen tells us how to make perfect hard boiled eggs (still on my to-do list for today!)

~ Angry Chicken shares a recipe for birds' nests (edible!) that kindergarten teachers, their students and families are sure to enjoy!

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Recent Blog Discoveries:

ModernJune

Tammy Gilley Studios

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I forgot to mention that while I was playing with Scrabble tiles and tongue-twisters the other day, I also made a Scrabble rack to go with my Easter decor in the epergne:



Happy Spring!

Spring has Sprung!

All over the kitchen, apparently!

The epergne:





Soffits:







And above the sink:



Whoops, don't forget the front door! The wreath I made last year survived the move from Kansas to Texas so it's ready to greet visitors yet once again:



Do you decorate for spring?