2nd Grade End of Year Party

Mrs. Roach's class has a pet frog so that was the theme for the party.  Mrs. Roach was kind enough to take on the activities so I could be at the kinder party with my younger son.  She took the students outside for water games (balloons, sponges, etc.)  As a party favor, I purchased $1 frisbees for each student from Michaels which they took outside as part of their outdoor fun.  They were green and pink and I added a label with a frog that said Mrs. Roach's 2nd Grade Class 2011-2012.  After the games, the class came inside for "brunch"...donuts, bagels, fruit and water.  After they ate, they sang a few songs to thank the parents and we ended the party with a song for Mrs. Roach thanking her for all she did this year.  The students got to take home a frog keychain and frog balloon along with their frisbee.  Mrs. Roach got a few gift cards as well as an apron with the silhoutte of each student on it.  It was very sweet!

Classroom Fiesta Auction Item Idea

Set(s) of handmade cards.  Have each child create one (or more) cards, then sell them by the set.

2nd Grade Winter Party by Tracy Leventhal

We had our party after lunch which meant only about an hour...12:15-1:16 (banking day). We decided to do 3 centers at 20 minutes each but it was more like 15 minutes after we included time to eat treats and hand out teacher gifts. Overall, it seemed rushed but it was nice not to have to entertain the kids for too long. Center 1 was cookie decorating. We got the sugar cookies from Ralphs and the kids decorated with the icing in the kit as well as some additional decorations we brought. As it seems to be the case, we over bought on extra frosting and cookies. The kids never use as much as I think they will! Center 2 was an ornament craft from Michaels. They were really cute beaded candy canes. The wiring at the end was tricky but we had a lot of parents to help. Center 3 was a game - Left, Right, Center. Everyone got a holiday eraser for playing and the winner got a pencil as well. This game was tough because the kids get confused as to which is right and which is left. The room was so noisy that I ended up yelling "No, your other right!" so often that it got a little frustrating. Also, 15 minutes isn't always enough time to finish which made handing out a prize a little tricky. The food we served was a hit despite the fact that they had all just eaten lunch. We offered cheese, crackers, grapes, strawberries, cupcakes and juice and hardly had anything left over. The whole thing seemed to be nice and festive. My biggest recommendation is to get parent helpers assigned to centers ahead of time so room moms can supervise, take pictures and not run around like crazy people the whole time!

Second Grade Winter Party by Kristen O'Meara

I tried to keep it fairly simple. We had 5 centers: gingerbread men, word scramble, craft, bean bag toss game, yogurt parfaits. The teacher supplied the craft (which was making reindeer out of construction paper and tracing their hands for the antlers) and the bean bag toss game (which they did outside and kept score using chalk on the sidewalk).

I bought gingerbread man decorating kits from Michael's and spent about $21 for 3 boxes (which was 24 gingerbread men). They were on sale :) It had all the supplies I needed for decorating. I bought extra frosting just in case and didn't even come close to needing it. I did buy one extra decoration and in hindsight wish I had bought a few more candy options for decorating. The last center ran a little low on the candy that came in the kit.

The yogurt parfaits were made from strawberry yogurt, strawberries, blueberries and granola (thankfully we have no peanut allergies in our class so we were able to add the granola option). I have done this station before and added cans of Readi Whip which is fun for the kids but can get a little crazy with the younger kids. They obsess on it so I didn't do it this year.

The word scramble was simple. Go to www.armoredpenguin.com/wordscramble and type the names in and the website will make a printable .pdf word scramble for you. The kids love finding their names.

The teacher had already separated the kids into 5 groups and we timed each center so they could move pretty seamlessly from one group to the next all at the same time. We did 3 inside at the tables and 2 outside (the game and the craft) which kept the classroom from getting too crazy and tight with all the moving around.

We also had some juice and bagels w/ cream cheese for the adults but we didn't really need them. The kids mostly ate them so next year I might make sure to add the bagels to the yogurt parfait station and not worry about any food for the adults.

Fourth Grade Winter Party by Betsy Wilbur

Hot Chocolate Bar - Popcorn Bar with Toppings - Desserts - LCR Game with Prizes

Fourth Graders are a little past crafts.  Plus we only had an hour after lunch.  So we did a hot chocolate bar (hot chocolate with toppings:  marshmallows, whipped cream and a peppermint stick) and popcorn bar (popcorn with different toppings).  We covered the centers with $1.00 table coverings from Big Lots and also covered the teachers desk which we used as a food table.  I bought the movie-style popcorn bags from Oriental Trading and filled them about half way (about 16 bags of microwave popcorn did 35 bags).  We placed one bag at each child's place.  The hot chocolate was in 2 pump thermoses.  Just enough for 35 kids about 4 oz. each - so maybe a third would be good next time.  Another thermos had hot water and we had apple cider packets (and extra hot chocolate packets).  We also had cupcakes and some cookies.  The kids came up by table of 6 and got their hot chocolate and deserts.    One mom went around to each table with the popcorn toppings while the dessert line was happening.  It seemed to work best to have a mom prepare the hot chocolates to their specifications and just hand it to them.  In hindsight it would have been better to have 3 different stations set up:  1 for desserts, 1 for hot chocolate, 1 for popcorn so that 3 tables could be up at the same time.

For the activity we had a game of LCR at each table (very simple dice game).  We had $1 prizes from Target - enough for each child.  The winner of each round at each table got to pick a prize from the basket.  Whoever did not get a prize then got to pick one on the way out.  We also did a raffle at the end and those 6 kids got to take an LCR game home.  By the time we started the LCR game we only had about 30 minutes left and some of the tables didn't finish a game (so I gave the prize to whoever had the most chips at that time).  A 2 hour party would work great for this - start with the game, break for food, then have another round or do a dance party at the end.