summer 2012: craft thursday #1, name-bow rainbow

happy thursday everyone!

today's craft was discovered on another one of my favorite websites, teachers pay teachers. if you are a teacher or a parent looking for supplemental educational materials and you have not yet checked this site out, summer is the perfect time! you can find inexpensive lessons, units, art projects... you name it, all created by someone else and ready to go. i love that you are buying only what you need, you have as any downloads as you want, most everything is based on common core, and stuff is super cute! i've been very happy with all twenty something of my purchases.

back to our craft for today. i saw name-bow rainbow (or rainbow name-bow, if you prefer) on teachers pay teachers. it cost $1.50, but with a little elbow grease (as in creating your own cloud tracer and acrostic name worksheet) the idea could easily be duplicated without purchasing the project. but i will give credit where credit is due. this was not my original idea. it came from reagan turnstall at turnstall's teaching tidbits. here's the link to her teachers pay teachers activity page if you are interested in buying this activity or if you want to check out her other projects for sale.

you will need: colorful construction paper cut into strips, cloud templates, markers, gluestick



it's not needed, but you may want: a worksheet for listing adjectives (descriptive words). i made this one using microsoft word.



the idea of name-bow rainbow is simple. students (the lesson actually suggests having parents do this) come up with an adjective that starts with each letter of their first name. each adjective should describe the child in some way. this is called an acrostic poem. for younger kids this can be the most difficult part, which is probably why it was suggested to have parents do this part. with a little help, all three boys were able to come up with words for each letter of their name. i googled a list of adjectives listed in alphabetical order and had this open on my desktop as a resource for when we were all stuck. we learned there are not many "nice" adjectives for the letter n. ha! the kids filled out a little worksheet (see above) to help them keep track of and organize their adjectives.


here is a photo of the work area all set up. not much to it, but in my experience, crafting is happier when everything is ready to go.



before we began, i explained what the kids would be doing and showed them a sample, then they went to work. i walked around the table and helped as needed. thankfully my cutie pie natalie kept herself busy with other fun activities, like army men in a box! 





first, the kids brainstormed and decided upon an adjective for each letter of their first name. it was fun to see them sharing, helping, and laughing about some of their ideas!







after the adjectives were decided upon, it was time to cut out the clouds. i had taylor (age 10) and zachary (age 7) cut out their own clouds, but i pre-cut ben's (age 5) cloud anticipating that might be discouraging for him. he was mad i cut it for him.



after the clouds are cut, the kids get to pick one strip of rainbow for each letter of their first name. i allowed them to choose any colors they wanted. ben was a little upset that he only has three letters in his name, therefore only got to choose three colors for his rainbow. we remedied that by coming up with five more adjectives for the name benjamin. lucky us!  this did leave me wondering how many kids have cried doing this project because they didn't have as many rainbow colors as the next guy?

 

next, we glued the rainbow strips to the cloud and then wrote the adjectives on the strips in name order. gluing the strips on first ensures that you won't accidentally write an adjective on the wrong side or cover the adjective partially when you glue the strips on. this is where the worksheet comes in handy!



finally, each kid wrote their name any way they wanted on the cloud. i encouraged them to write fancy, but some little boys are more interested in being done first than being fancy. :)

 here are our finished name-bow rainbows...







 we worked together to make a name-bow rainbow for little sister natalie, too. 



name-bow rainbows on display... so colorful and happy!

this project would make a sweet little homemade gift for someone. 
happy crafting!!

end of the year teacher gift

there are many times during the week that i think "oh, that would be a great blog post." later when i go to post something i can't remember what i wanted to share.

then i look through the pictures on my camera and see photos like this:

and i think "how smart of me to take a picture of what i wanted to blog about!" now if only i can remember to do that more often. ha!

i found the idea for these sweet boxes here. i found it last year, but the school year had just ended (sorry mrs. o! maybe you'll get one in two years?!), so i tucked this little treasure away until this year and surprise! i actually remembered to use it!

you can also find some other cute teacher appreciation ideas on this site. teachers will dig the fun phrases, homemade touch, and most of all, the thoughtfulness :)

the boys each picked out the color combinations, letter styles, and decorative pieces for their boxes. i cut the paper and used glue dots to adhere the paper and ribbon to the box. taylor put the letter stickers and decorations on the top. zach had the stomach flu, so he gave me permission to do the letter stickers on his, but he added the flowers. together we picked out the contents: colorful paperclips and binder clips,  pencils (ticoderoga, of course!), smelly stickers, and chocolate.



 zachary had two teachers, mrs. campbell and mrs. perez, so we made a box for each of them. taylor's teacher was mrs. schulz.

this box can be adapted for all kinds of special people, not just teachers. are you going to tuck this little treasure of an idea away and make one for someone some day?  

feeling crafty

recently i have been feeling crafty. i think it's my brains way of saying it needs a break from the daily grind.

i got a sewing machine for christmas. the only thing i've ever sewn in my life was an apron. when i was in girl scouts. 25 years ago.

with that said, getting a sewing machine was exciting, but a little scary, too. i want to use it, but come on, i've got four kids... when and how ever am i going to learn to sew?

i've come to the conclusion that i just need to take it out and start working.

so i did. i made a flag banner for the boys' room. and guess what... it was easy and fun and it felt good to do something for me.


gathered some scrapbook paper i purchased from the dollar spot at target


cut out triangle shapes


made a fold at the top and stitched it together


strung flags together with yarn

i still need to hang it in the boys' room. i'm fairly certain they won't care about this little project. sure they'll say it's cool, but this wasn't about them anyway. it was about me--doing something fun to me.

what is something you've done for yourself recently?