Halloween I-Spy Bottle

Happy Halloween!

Okay, okay! A little premature but I LOVE Halloween and I can't wait to get started! If you are planning on any DIY Halloween projects now is the time to start preparing!

About this time last year my "Dream Team" room moms and I were brainstorming some Halloween craft ideas to do with kindergarteners. Yes, I really did say "dream team" because we were! Room moms of the highest caliber. The Olympic gold medal winners of room moms! Rock star moms! (Yes, let me toot my horn! We worked hard!) All humbleness aside, Mrs. K, Mrs. M and I worked really well together. I believe a key component to our success was that all three of us have backgrounds in education and know how to create a lesson plan and carry it out. This was truly a plus!

Our first craft that we had to plan for was for Halloween. While there are so many fun and creative ideas out there we had to keep a few things in mind:

• the craft had to be completed in an hour;
• we were totally dependent on the kindergarten parents for donating the supplies and;
• the craft had to meet the common core standards (this particular one had to do with 3-dimensional shapes) 

Initially I thought about having the kindergarteners make finger puppet ghosts (see the link here) but in the the end we decided to make Halloween I-Spy bottles!

 

While it wasn't my first time making I-Spy bottles with a group it was my first time making it with a group this large. We had to plan for approximately 75 kids! Each kindergarten class was responsible for collecting their own supplies and doing all the prep work before craft day. In case you are considering making these with a large group this is what we requested for each kindergarten class:

• 24  (16.9 oz.) empty water bottles WITH lids. Smooth bottles (with  the least amount of ridges) works best. 
• 20 lbs white rice
• Orange food coloring
• 5 x large plastic bowls to hold 5lbs rice (ex. large ice cream tubs or plastic witches’ cauldron)
• 24 quart Ziploc bags 
• 24 (3oz or 5oz) paper or plastic “bathroom cups” (to pour rice into funnels) 
• 8+ sets of 24 small trinkets
• Construction paper (to make paper funnels)
• Scotch tape (for paper funnels)
• Hot gun and glue sticks (to only be used by an adult)
• Permanent marker or(to put names on lids, mark bottles “do not fill past this line”)
• Wax paper or cookie sheet (to dry colored rice) 
• Optional: camera, printer paper, laminating machine, ribbon, hole puncher, scissors (to make I-Spy tags)
• Paper towels, spray bottle/cleanser to wipe tables down; broom and dustpan; trash bag for clean up
• Paper towel/toilet paper roll to show the students that a water bottle is a 3 dimensional shape

The prep work before craft day consisted of: cleaning the bottles; removing the labels and any sticky residue; dyeing the rice; bagging the trinkets; making paper funnels; and making a sample of the craft to show the students on craft day. We also made made a laminated tag to attach to the bottle that had a list of items on one side a picture of the items on the other: 

One of the cool trinkets we put into our bottles was a bean ghost:

Simply draw eyes on white beans! It is easy and inexpensive to do and the kids can draw the faces themselves! Thanks to "Chasing Cheerios" for the idea! 

While it was a lot of work for a group this large the kids had a great time and absolutely loved it! As a matter of fact, at the end of the year I had one student tell me the I-Spy bottle was their most favorite craft ever! 

Many thanks to my Dream Team! Mrs. K and Mrs. M! 

For other Halloween craft ideas check out some things I have done in the past: spider lollipops, milk carton lights and spooky specimens jars! Or plan a Halloween feast with worm spaghetti and blood sauce! It has become an annual tradition that the kids look forward to every year!

Happy Crafting!

P.S. If you would like a sample of the lesson plan we created please let me know. I will be happy to email it to you! You can tweak it to fit your needs.

Halloween Finger Puppet Ghosts

Hellooooooo September!

I truly thought that with BOTH kids being in school it would free up a lot of my time, but not quite. I volunteered to be "room mom" for my daughter's kindergarten class only to be promoted to grade level mom. They have been keeping me busy!

As the grade level mom one of my responsibilities is to come up with crafts to do for the big "celebrations" throughout the year. This includes all three kindergarten classes, so approximately 65 or so kids. While our first celebration isn't until the end of October I thought I would get a head start and start brainstorming some ideas (thank goodness for Pinterest!) 

Besides being fun there are some things that I have to consider when planning an activity. The craft must: 

1) be age-appropriate and doable by kindergarteners; 

2) be completed in an allotted amount of time (in this case, one hour); 

3)be budget-friendly (doing the crafts via donations by the parents...either asking for supplies or cash) and;

5) meet the core standards for the kindergarten grade level. (The core standard for this particular art project is to create a 3-dimensional object.)

At the suggestion of a girlfriend (Thanks, Betsy!) my girls and I tried making some finger puppet ghosts. The end product turned out adorable! We showed our samples to Momo's teacher and she loved them as well! So I guess you can say this craft is mommy, teacher, and kid-approved! I am looking forward to sharing this with the rest of the kindergarteners in October!  

Here are our little ghosts:

The total time to make the ghosts? Less than 30 minutes! (Allow for more time if working with more kids.) Here are some more pics of the process:

Important note! While the supply list shows "Plaster of Paris" you need to have plaster STRIPS/cloths/bandages.  The packaging I bought looks like this:

There were other brands/sizes to choose from (please note, these are Hawaii prices - hopefully you can find the plaster cloths cheaper where you live!):

Hope this helps! Now go and make some little ghosts! :)

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I-Spy Bottle with Beautiful Rainbow Rice

Yesterday I hosted a craft playdate with the Honolulu Mommies. What a great group of gals! We had about 10 kiddos come and we made some I-Spy bottles! 

Prior to the playdate I made some rainbow rice:

The process is simple and only takes a few minutes! I'll tell you how at the bottom of this post!

Here are the bottles of prepped rice. Aren't the colors beautiful?  It would've been easier to have mixed the colors at home but I thought the kids might like to see all the different colors:

Here is the rice all mixed up. (Thanks to my hand model, Michelle!)

Everyone was asked to bring trinkets to share. We had pom-poms, buttons, pennies, BBs, stickers, marbles, bells, ribbon, foam cut-outs, pieces of felt, crayons, paper clips, alphabet beads, etc. etc.! After we got home we found some other things to add such as sea glass, shells, Lego pieces, erasers tops, and pieces of straw. I'm sure we'll find more things to add!

Funnels worked great to pour the rice into the bottles. However, paper funnels (roll the papers into a tube and tape) worked just as well!

And here are two of the completed bottles:

While I would have preferred that each bottle have only one of each trinket the kiddos seemed to really enjoy stuffing their bottles with whatever they could get hands on! They couldn't even wait for the stickers to be individually cut. Oh well!

Now....how to make the rainbow rice!

ll you need is rice, food coloring, rubbing alcohol, a baggie to mix the rice in, wax paper and some table space to let the color dry/set.

Obviously you can increase or decrease the amount of rice you are going to use but this is how I did it:

For each color:

• 
  
  pour 1 and 1/2 cups of rice into a baggie
• 
  
  add 1/2 tsp of rubbing alcohol
• 
  
  add a few squirts of food coloring
• 
  
  seal the bag and shake it up
• 
  
  when you have the desired color pour the rice out onto a flat surface covered with wax paper
• 
  
  let the rice dry - it only takes about 15 minutes!
• 
  
  repeat for each of the other colors

That's it!

To make the I-Spy bottle pour the rice into your bottle. For a 16.9 oz. bottle you need about 1 and 1/2 cups of rice. Don't fill the rice to the top or else you won't have room for your trinkets! Add your trinkets, seal it (I recommend using super glue or a hot glue gun to hold the seal) and shake it up!

Just an FYI - we were expecting about 10 kids to attend the playdate. Worried that others may show up unexpectedly or bottles of rice were going to spill I prepped 16 bottles and it was more than enough. A few of the kids happily ended up making more than one bottle! :)

*Thanks to Pink and Green Mama (one of my new favorite blogs for crafts!) for the inspiration and instructions on making rainbow rice! Only later did I notice that she also made I-Spy bottles with her rainbow rice! She had some GREAT trinkets. Go check her out!