More Magic Spoon Madness, 100th Day Art, and Thigh Rolls

Happy last-day-of-January folks!

Were you as taken aback as I was today when all of the January calendar and things had to come down and February had to be put up?  Yeeesh!  I have said it EVERY month . . . but seriously, where did the time go?

Okay, first things first . . .I hope you all are loving your magic spoons as much as I am.  Their golden-ness truly delights my kidlets every time.  No really. EVERY time.  And the look on their face when the decode their words and master the whole mat is priceless!  However . . . I have had SOME students at my center who claim they have read every single word on their mat (in a matter of fifteen seconds as I had my back turned) and are ready for another spoon from the fancy-shmancy magic spoon bucket.  Hmmm. Looks like they love those spoons too much . . . They are just so anxious to try out every single one!

Anywho . . . I created this little Magic Spoon recording sheet to keep 'em honest to record the words they decode that are "real" words (none of the nonsense words).  When they come across a word they write it, and then illlustrate it.  Cute, right?  Click below to download.

On a completely different subject . . . I love February. And the 100th Day of School.  In fact, I could skip right over Valentine's Day completely. (I don't need all that chocolate . . . I have been eating WAY too many Girl Scout Cookies as it is!)  One of the most fun projects we will be doing is our 100 Year-Old Self-Portraits.  Deanna Jump had such a cute bulletin board display that she blogged about, and I LOVED how she put her little people in what looked like oval frames!  (See it here!) I stole that idea, adapted my old sample from last year, and voila!!  I like to use yarn for the white hair, and I am thinking that instead of solid construction paper for the background, I am going to use funky scrapbook paper that will look like old wallpaper. Love it!!! (Sorry for the terrible photo . . . I was totally rushing out the door at school!)

Here are the dimensions:

shoulders 6x4 inches (whatever color you would like)
face 5x5 skin color
neck 1x2 skin color
ears 1x2 1/2 (cut piece in half and round corners for ears)
mouth 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 pink
background 9x12 (trace oval onto back of paper so kids can cut out when they are done and mount onto 9x12 black rectangle)
and . . . white yarn for the hair (You can do a swirly bun, mustache, comb-over . . . well, you get the idea!)

I also made up some writing paper to go along with our artwork Click on the 100 below to download it.

What cute things will you be doing (or have you already done) for the 100th Day?  I can't wait to see!

Lindsay

P.S. I know you are dying for a recent picture of Jack, right?  Well . . . here you go!  Check out those thighs people!  I am signing off now to go squeeze those hamhocks!!