Mother's Day Tea (a little late!)

Thanks for stopping by! I'm so excited to finally join the blogging world.... I have been so inspired by all of the ideas I've found through others' blogs, and I'm hoping mine might be able to do the same for others. 

The last few weeks have been B-U-S-Y!! Although, it seems like that's the case every year after spring break, so I'm not sure why it surprises me every year. Last week we had our first annual Mother's Day Tea, and it was SO much fun. Every single student had someone come (our first 100% attendance I can remember at any event!), whether it was a mom, a grandma, or even a dad in one case. We spent a lot of time preparing the week beforehand, and it was well worth it. Here's a look at some of our projects:

First, we made personalized invitations to send home. Students drew a portrait of their special someone on the cover, then completed the invitation on the inside. (I forgot to take a picture of a finished product, but here was one in the works!) 

If you would like to a copy of the invitation and RSVP template, you can download it here!

For the placemats, we cut out and painted these teapots, inspired by Kindercraze (see her posting at http://kindercraze.blogspot.com/2012/05/placemats-and-letters-to-mom-more.html). My kiddos made one for them and one for each of their guests. I did the tracing, then they cut out the teapots and used cookie cutters to stamp the flowers on the teapots. Here's what they looked like on the tables!

For the centerpieces, we drew flowers on colored construction paper and decorated them with bingo markers. We attached them to kebab sticks and added cute hearts for the leaves. Students dictated why they loved their moms on those. I laminated them so they would stay standing. (in case you can’t tell, I am just a teensy bit obsessed with laminating!) Then, into some Styrofoam inside of these cute flowerpots from the Dollar Spot at Target they went. Some brown gift basket filler covered nicely as dirt!

On the day of the big event, my kinders greeted their guests at the door, escorted them into their seats, and visited until the program started. They had practiced a song in our Integrated Arts class that they performed, and then we did a choral reading of the precious rebus book "I Love You" by Jean Marzollo. We wrote our own version of the book too, using the repeating line from the book "Every ___ loves a ___." and I videotaped the students' performance. So cute... and no papers rattling around by those waiting their turn like when we tried practicing a live performance :)

Grab your own copy of the class book page to accompany it here!

Our performance ended with a grand finale that happened to be one of those last minute, it's-midnight-and-I-can't-fall-asleep-because-I'm-thinking-about-school-again ideas. I took my kinders out for an extra recess and called them over to answer the following questions about their moms on camera: What is your favorite thing to do with your mom? What is the most beautiful thing about your mom? What is your favorite food your mom makes? Why do you love your mom? I threw all the responses together in iMovie and VOILA! a really adorable, honest, and memorable video. I wish you could all see it!

After the performance we enjoyed some lemonade and treats and did a cute butterfly handprint craft (once again, forgot to take pictures... oops!). When it was time for our guests to leave, I could tell they really enjoyed themselves... and so did my kinders and I!