Making an Elsa Braid

*Disclaimer – this isn’t a school/teaching related post.  It’s a mom/family related post.  I try to stick to my professional side but sometimes the two are woven or sometimes I’m just so excited about something from my family life I have to share.  This is one of those times.

I have a 5 year old daughter.  Halloween is coming up and as you can probably guess she’s decided to be Elsa for Halloween.  She decided in June that she was going to be a My Little Pony and I was excited because I found the cutest costume online to make her.  The Party City Halloween costume flyer came to the house the first week of October and she changed her mind… in October… I knew finding a dress to fit her would prove to be difficult.  I was right.  Good thing my husband’s Nana is a great seamstress and she made Keelyn the perfect dress.  Keelyn has a short bob and she’s been insisting that her hair isn’t right for Elsa.  We tried the wig but it was too messy for Keelyn’s likes.  We decided to repurpose one of her play tiara’s into an Elsa tiara and hair.

Keelyn chose the tiara and from our winter craft stuff she chose glittery winter things to decorate it with. We also used light yellow yarn and braided it to cover the arms of the tiara and glued it into place. We added more yarn to make the bottom thicker and braided it into the two smaller braids. If I could do it again I’d make the length more consistent as it looks a bit sloppy at the end where the yarn lengths taper. It was Keelyn’s idea to glue in some sparkly things on the braid. She’s pretty proud of it and I’m happy because I got to contribute to her costume as well!

Super easy Elsa braid. Use yarn, an existing tiara, hot blue, and winter glittery things 🙂

I think she likes it!

Halloween Happenings in 3B

As a teacher, Halloween in school has a different feeling then when I was a student.  I remember waking up this morning (after staying up way to late preparing treat bags for my own children to take to school) and feeling like I just wanted to stay under my warm covers.  It’s crazy in school on Halloween the kids are super excited and it’s hard to maintain their attention and focus.  Combine rain and indoor recess all day it makes for some interesting times.  Of course my commute in was a nightmare the normal hour was closer to an hour and a half and it was literally bumper to bumper until I got to the 407 which got me to school with 20 minutes to spare.  So naturally the day started out pretty frantic and I was in a panic yucky feeling. However once I saw the students in 3B I calmed.  They were so cheery and obviously excited that it was hard to stay grumpy.  It’s funny because this week we read the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and I was feeling a little like Alexander especially since they don’t celebrate Halloween in Australia 🙂 but like I said it is hard to stay in a funk when you have  group of 22 very happy faces smiling at you.  

After running down what our day would look like I had the kids do a writing activity for me where they talked about if they liked Halloween. They had to choose yes or no and provide 3 reasons to support their answer.  Students had a variety of answers. Most said yes because they like to carve pumpkins, dress up and get candy.  But a few said they didn’t like Halloween because they don’t love to dress up, or they have a peanut allergy so they don’t get many candies.  Interesting to hear their point of view.  I also realized that we need to do some more practice on paragraph writing (let’s add that to the day plans for next week).  We also played Halloween BINGO which was well received especially since I had Halloween themed prizes.  We’ve been having some difficulty with cooperation so I had them play BINGO with a partner and they had to take turns covering the card and come to a consensus together if they wanted to change their card at the start of new rounds.  We also reviewed our “Be Board” and decided that it would be a good idea for the winners to be humble.  I was really proud of them they demonstrated cooperation and had a lot of fun as well.

After lunch students costumed up and prepared for the Fitness Walk.  Traditionally our school does the walk outside in the community but the weather had other plans for us so we did the walk in the school.  We did several passes and walked through the gym where our Kindergarten students were watching us.  Halloween music played, students laughed, danced and cheered on their peers.  I like the outdoor fitness walk but I think I liked this more. There was just so much happiness and joy and a really sense of coming together as a school.  When the walk was over we returned to class where our principal read us a Halloween story and the students in my class “Trick or Treated” with the goodies their peers brought.

It was pretty fun today.  The students did a really great job of coming together, cooperating and they showed me that a holiday in school doesn’t have to be a stressful event.  That simplifying and just enjoying the moment is the way to handle it!

So thank you 3B you are the best! 

Happy Halloween!