Mother's Day cards: made with love and celery!

Hey y'all! It's Rachel from the tattooed teacher, and I am loving the ideas this week on Owls!

I love a good craft! Especially one that I know parents will actually look at and not toss. I mean I never do that! ;) I wanted to share two super fun and creative ideas I do every year for Mother's Day in my classroom!

My favorite craft, by far...is celery painting! I found it on this little blog and it took some trial and error with so many kids, but I do it each year, so it can't be that bad!
The tutorial is super specific, so I didn't recreate it!
and here's what you get!

another yearly favorite is bath salts! Now, oil of essence is a little tougher to find, but luckily we have a health food store nearby. But you can also order it on Amazon! This idea would go great with Katie Mense's newMommy Spa product!

I literally have them sit in the floor in a circle. Each kid gets a snack size zippy bag, and we pass the Epsom salts around. They put in 2 or 3 scoops. Then we pass the oil around. They put in 2 DROPS! Zip-shake-done! As you can see, we have added food coloring before...let's just say I am pretty sure it comes out in the tub! So now we do au naturale! 

The kids decorate the front anyway they think their mom would like, then record the directions for use on the back! It's simply a large index card stapled over the zippy part! You could also make a sugar scrub! yum!

And last, but not least! We host a Garden Tea Party!

You can read more about it here (and why we have it), but here's the scoop all in one nifty product! I just rehauled this thing! This file includes a Happy Mother's Day banner, cards for invitations (also editable), food and drink table tent signs, place cards for mom, and more! and it doesn't have to be a tea party either! I also included just a plain ol' we love love our momma party! as well as a Special Ladies sign in case your kiddos need that option! I am smitten with these colors right now!

I adore inviting these amazing mommies to spend some time with us. I work in an area where our parents have to work. We do not have many stay at home moms. So this day is super special for my kiddos!

I even invite my own mommy!

You can see there in the background that we just have our moms sit at the kids' desks and we serve them tea and cookies. We also deliver their gifts (bath salts, card, and our mother's day magazines!) I set out poetry books and other sweet things, but trust me, the moms and grandmas are super entertained by the gifts alone! 

If you are interested in hosting a little mommy day of your own, click below to check out my printable pack! It's half off this week!

We are linking up some extra special ideas all week!

you can see my past projects and mother's day posts here

Join us again tomorrow!

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Mother's Day Ideas {Magazine and Firefly Card Freebie}

Moms.  They certainly deserve a very special gift on their special day.  What better than a hand-written keepsake from their child to treasure for years to come?

I know when I go to my mom's house, she still has that big box full of all the little notes, cards, and poems that we made for her when we were small.  There's not much that's more special to a mom than heartfelt writing from her child.

My absolute favorite Mother's Day gift that I do year after year is our Mother's Day Magazines.  They turn out so cute.  So personalized.  So unique.  So heartfelt.

The magazines include an interview, a recipe, an advice column, and more!  So precious!  You can find the magazine at the link below.

And, I like to have the kids "wrap it" - you know, so mom doesn't see it in the car on the way home. :) We usually just use bulletin board paper that they decorate on their own.

Here's a cute little card FREEBIE you could make to attach to the wrapped gift.  Or, the card by itself would be a nice little gift for mom. Just print, add fingerprints, and personalize.  Easy peasy!

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Mother's Day Week

Hey y'all! It's Megan from I Teach. What's Your Super Power?  It's Mother's Day week over here at Owl-Ways Be Inspired.  It's sneaking up on us, and it's time to get planning.  This week you'll find plenty of great activities to celebrate moms.

This was a fun writing lesson that we did for Mother's Day.  It could work well for anytime of the year, though, and I think it would be a super fun end of the year lesson. Their Mother's Day gifts were the top ten reasons their mom was the best, and they always turn out so very sweet.

We started off by brainstorming special things about their mom.  The only rule was that it could not be something their mom bought for them. We thought about special times together, birthday traditions, how they care for us when we're sick, etc.  I always model by brainstorming about my mom, and they love hearing about her.

Click on image or here to download planning sheet.

The next step was to get writing.  This is a great time to teach kids about rearranging sentences.  Otherwise, all of your sentences will start with "she" or "my mom."  I limit them to two each.  So:

"She always makes me chicken noodle soup when I am sick."

Gets rearranged to become:

"When I am sick, she makes me chicken noodle soup.

 When I taught fourth grade, we used Glogster for our final copies.

Our third graders also know how to use Open Office.  They were very comfortable using it, so we just went with that.  Here's one sweet kiddo's list:

These top ten lists make wonderful Mother's Day gifts, but I think they would make a great end of the year reflection, too.  Check back this week for more Mother's Day ideas!

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bees and a winner!

Hey y'all! It's Rachel from the tattooed teacher today!

it's the last day of our Spring Fling freebies! 

I added a little something to "spring-ify" my insect unit! We have to teach our units based on our district's kit rotation, so we had our insects in the fall. Sad face.

But we will revisit them again with an earthworm day on Earth Day and again with bees and butterflies in April (which is today! how did that happen!?)

This freebie includes bee specific graphic organizers and a brand new minibook! My kiddos love little books! They hoard them in their book boxes!

Click the picture to download! It's only available to our Owls readers (I won't post on TpT until next week)!! I hope you love it!

Need more on insects?

check my units out! 

Each of the bee organizers came from here! This is a great intro unit!

Mealworms! one of my best sellers!

And here are two lifecycle files!

Centers

and interactive notebook templates!

Stay Buggy!

and before I go! Here's our winner of the spring fling giveaway!

and don't forget all this goodness from my owl friends!

An InLinkz Link-up

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