Christmas Deco Mesh Wreath

So thanks to Pinterest I have a ridiculously long list of recipes I want to try, activities for my classroom I want to do with the kids, and crafts I want to make. Since we had a day off today for Veteran's Day I decided that a trip to Hobby Lobby was in order because I wanted to finally try and make a Deco Mesh wreath. I already had a 4th of July Wreath and a Halloween wreath so when I entered Hobby Lobby I had every intention of getting some items together to make a Thanksgiving wreath. Unfortunately their fall supplies were condensed into 2.5 small aisles and Christmas/Winter decorations had taken over ENTIRELY! So I picked up a few pumpkins and a roll of gold deco mesh to hang on to until I gather enough supplies to make an entire wreath. I decided to just get some supplies for a Christmas wreath instead (and a few supplies for a UNC/FSU wreath that I will make once I get a few more embellishments for it).

So in the picture below you will see all of the supplies I got. I ended up using everything except the 4 pack of large ornaments and the box of gold snowflakes. I also used my glue gun but that was it.

Step 1 was to take all the tags off and open up all the supplies. I used a red 21 inch roll of red deco mesh and a 5 in roll of bright green deco mesh. Normally I would tend to stick to more traditional holiday decorations as far as more of a hunter green and plaid ribbon instead of the bright stuff but I decided I wanted to do something a little different and more modern.  

The next thing I did was tie the pipe cleaners onto the wire wreath form. Then I unrolled the mesh and decided to go ahead and do the 2 colors at the same time. I gathered the ends together and twisted it down with the pipe cleaners, left about 6 inches and then twisted another gathered bunch and kept going all the way around the inside then the outside, puffing the loops up as I went. 

This is what it looked like once I had gone around both the inner and outer edges. 

Then I hung it up to make sure there weren't any huge gaps. 

The next things i did was add the ribbon. I started on an outside loop and rotated inside then outside though I'm not sure you can totally tell. That one weird loop on the left that somehow seems to be going the wrong direction kind of annoys me but I'll get over it :)  Then I started using my glue gun to glue in the embellishments. 

I kept hanging it up periodically to make sure I was adding things somewhat evenly and that I wasn't adding too much. I decided to leave off the ornaments I had bought because I thought it would look a little overcrowded and this is what I ended up with. Try to ignore the fact that it's not centered on our back door :) 

For a first try I'm happy with it and I plan on hanging it on our front door for the winter. I just have to hope that the little frogs that hang out all over our house/neighborhood don't get all over it!! The joys of living in Florida! 

Fall Fun in the Classroom

So most of you probably already know that I am a Pre-K teacher and I teach an inclusion class of kids from ages 3-newly turned 5 year olds. Some of you may not be familiar with the term "inclusion class"... what this means is that I have a mix of typically developing children who are in the VPK program (a free 3 hours) but whose parents all pay to have them stay the rest of the day and ESE students (Exceptional Student Education) who have a varying degree of exceptionalities/disabilities. My breakdown has been 10 typical and 8 ESE the last 3 years and the most common exceptionalities have been autism and speech/language impaired but almost all of them come in with a generic "label" of Developmentally Delayed and it's our job (I find some teachers push for it more than others) to get the testing and get the appropriate label before they enter Kindergarten. When you have such a diverse group every day is a big challenge to feel like you are meeting everyone's needs but luckily I have 2 awesome aides who help me so much every day and I feel like we do a very good job ;)  Anyways that was a long winded intro to the following pictures but I wanted to share some of the things that we did in my classroom in October that the kids loved :)  I have pinterest to help me keep up with activities that I want to do with my own kids one day but I'm hoping to keep a record on the blog of some of the pinterest activities I've done that are successful and some of my own activities!

The kids enjoyed making these spider webs. I punched holes around a paper plate and cut yarn in various lengths (longer pieces for the kids who I knew had the attention span and ability to sit there and work on it for awhile).  Some of the kids would ask for direction in which hole to put it in b/c they wanted it to be just like the example one I made and others just went to town stringing it wherever on their own. I had to get a few tangles out but all in all it went well (I did it in small groups with me rather than all at once). When they were finished they picked 2 spider rings to attach to it.  You can see the whole bulletin board below. 

We also made candy corn. I had a parent volunteer cut out the black templates but the kids tore all of the colored pieces themselves and then glued them on accordingly. My aide Melissa worked on these with the kids and the tearing was good for fine motor and the colors were good for sorting.  

We also made these ghosts... I'd say about 80% of the kids have not mastered the skill of using scissors yet so everything but the streamers was pre-cut by an adult. The kids used the glue bottles, the tape dispensers, and the scissors to cut the streamers. It was easiest to have them cut only the streamers b/c we could quickly give them a refresher on how to hold the scissors and cut with a little forward progression. 

We did several other fun things in October including our Fall Party which included this giant glow in the dark bubble. There is a fan that keeps it inflated and 2 black lights inside. An adult read each small group a story inside the bubble where they wore glow necklaces and bracelets and got to hold flashlights. It's a big hit every year. Our former SLP made the bubble years ago and I was lucky enough to inherit it! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful October!!