Beginning Year Fun!

Is the beginning of the year "fun"?  Are you so tired that you can't even spell tired? Have you said the same thing a million times? Does your body physically ache?  If you are like me, you can answer yes to all of these questions. There is "no tired like beginning of year tired!" Yet it's the time of year we are the most excited, the most ambitious.....
Here are some of the fun things we did our first week.

To make this fun handprint poem, pour some paint on a sponge. Press the child's hand onto the sponge. Then, print it on the puzzle.  Allow to dry and add the poem.  These puzzles are from Michael's Craft Store. I had a friend who did hers on cardstock and then used the Ellison machine to cut the puzzle.

For a fun way to do a tour of the classroom, use these simple circle maps. Collect a selection of clip art--some things in your room and some things that are not in your room.   As you show each item, the children find it in the classroom. Then, sort the pictures onto the circle maps.

An easy follow up to this activity is to have the children do a cut and paste. Using the same clip art, invite the children to cut apart the pictures. Sort them onto the circle map if they are in our classroom.

The kids also made paper plate faces. We used the circle maps to make the wheels on the bus. Then, we loaded the kids onto the bus!

Another fun thing we did was to make this Long Hair or Short Hair Graph. In small groups, the children each made a face using the paper cut out, yarn, wiggle eyes, and pompom noses. They painted the paper plate, allowed it to dry, and added the features.  The length of the yarn hair, matches the length of their own hair. When we came back together, we placed the faces on the graph paper. As the children each put their face, we discussed how the data was changing. 
This ideas are from the Back to School Bundle.