I love celebrating Halloween in kindergarten. The kids love it and it is so much fun!
Kindergartners love doing crafts but I have a difficult time finding crafts that they can do independently or with limited help.
This year, we are trying some awesome crafts from Oriental Trading. So far, we have done only two crafts and they went so smoothly!

We do a lot of tissue paper mosaics for the windows in class, but usually we use glue and water and it is a big process. I have to do it with a small group and it is very difficult. These candy corn mosaics look just as goo, but they were one hundred times easier. The kits included a piece of clear paper already cut, a border, a string to hang it with and tissue paper squares (already cut!! I always dread cutting those!) I just had the kids gel the pieces to the clear page using a glue stick then glue the border on, it could not have been simpler. 

Click here to view the craft.

We also did these cute little popsicle stick jack-o-lanterns, they were done all with a glue stick again. These were super cute! The kids loved them!!

Click here to view the craft.

Here are the crafts that we will be doing in the next few weeks, I made a sample of all of them and they were all super easy to make.

Click here to view this craft.

We will be making these bags at our Halloween party, they will be perfect for the kids to take all of their treats home from their friends. They are pretty small, I thought they would be bigger, but I think they will still be great for what we are using them for. They are a really nice, thick canvas. I used regular markers for this project and they worked perfectly!

Click here to view this craft.

This cute little frame will be great for putting a picture of each kid at our Halloween party! The shapes are all peel and stick and they are super easy to make!

 Click here to view this craft.

This bracelet is adorable! I know all of the kids will love these!

Click here to view this craft.

Is this not the cutest thing ever? The pumpkins are made from the kids' actual thumbprints. I am really excited to do these!

Click here to view this craft.

The kids will love these little boxes. Again, all of the pieces were peel and stick so they will be perfect for kindergarten. 

If you are interested in getting Oriental Trading products for your classroom, they are hosting a great giveaway this week! 

Visit www.spooktaculargiveaway.com today and enter to win our weekly prize -- $250 in Halloween products of your choice from Oriental Trading. Plus, we’re giving away a $25 Oriental Trading gift card every day! Contest ends October 17, 2015.

There are a few more crafts that we will be doing from Oriental Trading, I will update this post once we do the other crafts.

I am so excited to finish these crafts and I know the kids will be excited as well.

This review is based strictly on my opinion. Others may have a different opinion or experience with the product listed above. I was provided the sample free of charge by Oriental Trading and I provided my honest opinion. No other type of compensation was received for this review.

Rise and Shine Books

Happy fall! This is our last day of a three day weekend, it was a nice break but we have a fun week coming up including our first field trip!

Today I wanted to share something that we have been doing this year that I LOVE!

Morning work has always been an issue for us, I feel that it is too hard in kindergarten because the kids are at such different levels and some kids take so long to get settled in the morning. By the time your last kid is coming in the door, the first few kids are done and bored.

I created this "rise and shine book" over the summer to try and fix these issues and I am loving it.

This completely eliminates the dreaded early finishers and the kids that are slower to come in can just pick it up when they come in. All of the kids work at their own pace.

The Rise and Shine book is a large book (around 50 pages). At the end of September, I had a few kids still on the first 10 pages and others finishing their last 10 pages. 

The activities are simple enough that the children can complete them independently. The first month included coloring, tracing and some simple number and letter activities.
There is a large variety of activities so the children will not get bored of doing the same types of things everyday. There is also a new book for each month
This year we have a few kids that take a long time to finish their work and then get very stressed when they don't get to finish. This helps these kids as well, because they know that they can finish the next morning.
There is always a lot to do when the kids coming in, between helping them all get settled, collecting notes and homework and finishing those last preparations for the day. Your kids will all be busy and doing something constructive while you complete these tasks.
Here are some pictures of the September Rise and Shine book in action:

After one day of Rise and Shine Books, the kids knew exactly what to do when they came in the door. It is fantastic!

We are now on our October Rise and Shine Books and the kids are loving it!

Here are the links to the books I currently have finished: