Room Mom needs help with school party ideas!!!

[D L and K's Mom]

We use bagels instead of pinecones for birdfeeders. The older the better. The birds like eating the lard and seeds off and then they eat the bagel. We got one of the local Bagel shops to donate some old bagels to us.

Games...we played pin the red nose on Rudolph and we had a book exchange.

 

[elan]

I need game ideas for my kindergarten class.. Have any ideas??

Pin the nose on rudolf or pin the star on the tree.
Jingle bell relay.
Wrapped present relay. (kids hold a wrapped box between the knees).
Snowman wrap (4-5 kids use toilet paper, a scarf and a black hat and wrap someone up).
Santa bingo.
Santa says (just like Simon only santa).
Pass the snowman (just like hot potato but use a stuffed christmas toy).


I love the reindeer food. We've made it at school and at home for years.

 

[sandiegosusie]

When I was room Mom a few years ago, I made graham cracker (gingerbread houses) for each child. I just melted sugar and very carefully "glued" each piece together. Each child was given a foil wrapped tray with the house glued on top of it.

The students were given assignments for candy toppings. The assignment was needed so that the class didn't end up with all M&Ms and no gum drops...This activity lasted for about 1.5-2 hours. It was great!

 

[HaleyB]

We are not allowed to have anything too "Christmas"

Musical chairs is fun

Hot Potato is also fun

We also play a game like hot potato but with a twist. You wrap small items, erasers, pencils, rubber balls, and so on in layers. each layer has one toy and you end up with a big 'ball'- one layer per child in the class. Then you play hot potato passing it around. The child holding the ball when the music stops unwraps one layer and gets that toy, then they are out. The beauty of this game is that you can make it go pretty quickly if you need to, but if you need it to take up more time you can slow it down. You need to really warn the kids to unwrap carefully so only one layer is unwrapped at a time. I keep a few wrapped things on hand just in case, because the unwrapping is all the fun. This is a common party game in England.

Instead of just passing out cupcakes you can do it cake walk style.

 

[daisyduck123]

No, each kid will not need his/her own bag of frosting to decorate cookies.

We just decorated sugar cookies today with frosting & sprinkles. I had everything set up on one table & my 1st graders came up to the table about 6 at a time to frost & decorate their BIG cookies. I had 1 big container of red frosting & one big container of green. I put 3 or 4 plastic knives in each & called them over.

They had a great time & the cookies were so big that many kids could not finish eating them.

 

[mermaidwannabe]

I love this board. I really do. These ideas are great! The stations idea will work great with the three activities. I like the idea about reading a book; someone could do that in the front of the room while the kids eat their snacks. Games sound like fun. I like the wrapped present relay idea. I already did Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin for the Halloween Party so I don't want to do the same thing, but good idea.

I have gift bags for them to decorate with foam pieces but glue sticks and Elmers does not work. I think I'll go to Michaels tomorrow and see if there is foam glue there. How frustrating!

I've had four Moms call me back and I've let them pick from my long list of items to bring. Do you other Room Moms end up bringing the majority of the party supplies? I don't mind because I love parties and being the Room Mom, but I just wondered. Maybe I just have a hard time asking people to bring things.

 

[mermaidwannabe]

Oops, one more thing. I wanted to do the reindeer food idea, but I wondered if it would open up a can of worms if some kid says "There's no such thing as reindeer." Anyone have that happen with first graders? I wouldn't do it with the third graders although my third grader still believes...thank goodness.

 

[mermaidwannabe]

Super easy craft:

Buy the large bucket of Crayola Wonder Clay (or it is called something close to that, it is air drying "clay") in white from Mikes- with a 40% off coupon it is $13.

Use plain white paper plates as a base, glue cotton balls onto it. Add glitter if you want. Make snowmen out of the clay. You can color the clay with plain old regular markers after it is dry. The color comes out nice and bright. We use a black marker (the thin ones are best) and make dots for eyes and the mouth. We make a carrot nose with an orange marker... they can go as fancy or simple as they like.

You can also work glitter into the clay before you make the snowman for sparkle. I use felt to make a scarf and real twigs for the arms. The kids LOVE this craft. We are doing for the third year in a row at the kids request!

This is a really good choice for older grades, as the kids are pretty much past wanting to make anything 'cute' and they have done all the glue and paper type crafts before.

hi HaleyB. I think I might do this for my third graders class. How long does it take for them to dry before they can be painted?

Thanks!

 

[MickeyP]

Sorry to go back to the crafts, but my kdg class always does the Marbleous ornament.
Buy the clear glass ornaments at Mike's (40% off)
Pour a tsp. of 2-3 different colors of paint roll around or shake carefully until the desired effect is acquired.

 

[MickeyP]

BTW, I think the Crayola clay is called Model Magic.

 

[mimif1]

I'm also room mom to a first grade class this year. We're doing Christmas around the world this year. The kids' just finished studying holiday customs from England, Germany, Mexico and Holland. We're playing a holiday shoe game (Holland) provided by another mom, winter bingo, bean bag toss with wreaths, and pin the nose on the reindeer. For crafts, we made the clear glass ornaments and paint for gifts for parents last week. We're going to decorate poinsettia cookies (Mexico) and gingerbread houses (Germany). We put a dollop of icing on each kid's plate and some decorations in paper condement cups for the cookies. For the gingerbread house, the kids are actually making them. Another mom had some small cardboard boxes that she got at a craft store and the kids will "glue" the graham crackers to the box with icing. Then with more icing, the kids will add the decorations. We asked each kid to bring in something specific for decorating the houses and cookies. Usually about 3/4 of the kids will bring something in. After, we'll make cards (England). We'll do the games in stations and the crafts all together.

 

[CinRell]

Sorry to go back to the crafts, but my kdg class always does the Marbleous ornament.
Buy the clear glass ornaments at Mike's (40% off)
Pour a tsp. of 2-3 different colors of paint roll around or shake carefully until the desired effect is acquired.

That sounds gorgeous! Something I might want to try myself...

 

[CinRell]

We did something similar to this last week, but with brown we just folded it in a triangle shape, and the nose was a piece of red paper cut out round with glitter on it. They love glitter time..>LOL


Also I had no clue abut the birdfeeder and the birds , I have 2 hanging on my backporch right now. Those little boogers are coming down ASAP!!!!
Thanks for the tip!!!!

Throw them into your lawn. Squirrels LOVE them and their mouths have more moisture like humans... they would love the treat

 

[CinRell]

Oops, one more thing. I wanted to do the reindeer food idea, but I wondered if it would open up a can of worms if some kid says "There's no such thing as reindeer." Anyone have that happen with first graders? I wouldn't do it with the third graders although my third grader still believes...thank goodness.

I think around this time of year most kids get in the spirit. If someone says there is no such thing... well you can be prepared and break out a pic of a real reindeer. Or simply say "well, *I* believe"... usually that will shut them up and make believers feel better

 

[digskat]

I made a set of these cute little angels for myself and the grandparents.
I used craft foam in white so they would last longer..but you could use paper instead. trace the childs hands (both) and one foot. THe foot shape becomes the body.. with the toes pointing downward and the heel is the face/head. The cutouts of the hands are the angels wings. We used googly eyes and yarn for hair and sparkles to decorate..and pipecleaner for the halo on the back we wrote: THis little angel is special you see
Because he/she is apart of me.
Her wings are my hands, her body my feet
On your tree she'll/he'll be very sweet
Sign(child's name) and year
Everyone else has had such great ideas...another thing I made one year was using the the old abc mini blocks and wooden balls we made an elf for each person's first initial in their name for the tree, I used felt for a hat and pipecleaners for arms and legs and sharpie to make the face.
If you buy a small /med straw hat you can use it to make a snow man door wreath, the part where your head fits into the hat is painted white(on theoutside and the brim paint dark blue and whiteunder the snow mans chin dots for snow flakes you can use scrap material for a scarf and twigs for arms etc..all my supplies I get at the dollar store. Good luck and have fun!

 

[mermaidwannabe]

Do you all think I have too many crafts going on? Since I have 45 minutes for activities (the teacher wants to save 15 minutes for eating and it's only one hour long), I have three stations. I had the pinecone birdfeeder at one along with a foam bag to glue to keep it in when finished. At another, I have the inverted ice cream cone Xmas trees and at the last station, I have them making bead/pipe cleaner snowflakes. Hmm.... maybe I should change one to a game???

 

[CinRell]

How about letting them choose 2 of the 3? Kids love the power of choice.