Dr Seuss’ Birthday Celebration Ideas

Here’s a tasty treat for your students to enjoy! You will need Oreos, red Life Saver Gummies and white icing or marshmallow fluff. Start by opening up the Oreos to create the base of the hat. Then alternate starting with a layer of icing and then a life saver gummy. Repeat this process until the hat is as tall as you would like.



For a healthier alternative of the hat snack, try cutting up a few bananas and strawberries and alternating them on a skewer. It gives the same effect of the hat with some healthier snack food choices.



This craft is both adorable and easy to create. You will need finger paint in red, blue and white to create this craft. You can also use whatever color construction paper you would like for the background. Starting with the red paint, take one of your students hands and paint it red, leaving out the ring finger. Have them firmly press the hand towards the bottom of the paper to create the body print. Next, paint the student’s palm white and  fingers blue. Have them add this print to the paper with their palm meeting the top of the palm of their other print. The fingers should be pointed upwards. Add a white circle of paint in the center of the red palm. After allowing the paint to dry, take a black marker and add on the face and “thing 1” onto the white circles.

For decorations, books, stickers and more click here! These items will help you throw the ultimate birthday celebration for Dr Seuss!

Healthy Snack Ideas: Winter Edition

Banana Snow Men – Start by chopping up a banana into slices. Each snowman will need 3 slices. Lay these flat on the plate in a snowman stack. For the buttons, grab a couple blueberries and placed them down the body of the snowman. You can use peanut butter or nutella to help make them stick. Don’t like blueberries? Try using a dark chocolate chip instead. For the arms, stick on two pretzel sticks to each side of the middle banana slice. The nose is just a sliver of carrot and the eyes are a each a dot of dark chocolate. 

Banana Penguin – Start by cutting a banana in half and dipping the top half in melted dark chocolate. You will want to hold it at a bit of a tilt to give the white stomach effect that penguins have. Next, cut 2 orange M&Ms in half. Place one half on the top middle of the banana, where the chocolate is, as the beak. Take the other 2 halves and place them at the bottom of the banana as feet.
You can eat the last half of the 2nd M& M.

Lastly, grab some white icing and add two dots for the eyes. To complete the look, grab your dark chocolate one last time and add on the pupil to each eye for a more realistic look.



Snowman Cheese Stick – Take your favorite color ribbon and cut it into small strips. Tie the strips around each cheese stick to create a scarf. Next, with a black sharpie, draw on buttons, eyes, and a mouth using small dots. With an orange sharpie, draw on the carrot nose. Lastly cut out the black hats out of construction paper and glue or tape them onto the snowman’s head.
 


Apple Penguin – Take your favorite apple and cut a heart shape into the side of it to create the face of your penguin. Using two strips of where you cut out the heart, take a bit of peanut butter and stick them on as wings. For the beak and feet, you can cut the shapes out of carrots or cheese. Using the peanut butter again, stick those into place.   Lastly, take two raisins and stick them on for the eyes.

Meet us back here for more crafts, snacks and fun!

10 Indoor Winter Activities

Wondering how you will keep your little ones occupied while they are stuck inside this winter season? We are here to help you with just that!
Here are 10 of our favorite indoor winter activities:
1. Puzzles – These are perfect for all ages because they come in so many varieties. Get one that is perfect for your child’s age or get one that’s a bit more challenging that you can work on together.

2. Movie Marathon – Make some popcorn, grab a blanket and watch some of your favorite movies. Our movie suggestion for the winter time is Frozen, of course!
3. Build A Fort – Grab some blankets, chairs or anything else you may need to build a fort! If you have any spare cardboard boxes around, these are perfect for building indoor forts. You can even have a contest and see who can make the best one.

4. Grab a Book – Snuggle up with a book or two by the fire! This is the perfect time to catch up on your reading, practice reading with little ones, and even reading a story to the family for a bit of family time.

Need a good book selection? Check out our 2nd Look Book Box here!

5. Arts & Crafts – Get crafty! Your little ones will stay occupied for hours when given some craft supplies to work with. You can have them create something specific by looking up templates online or checking out a few craft ideas from our blog, or you can turn them loose for some creative thinking.
6. Get Cooking – Let your little ones help you out with baking a few cookies. Once cooled, let them decorate the cookies as they please. This one is both fun and delicious!

7. Dance Party – Needing to get the wiggles out? Turn on the music and let the dancing begin. This will allow everyone to get in some exercise and release that pent up energy from being stuck indoors.
8. Game Time – Pull out the board games and cards for a family game night! There is nothing better for warming up a cold, winter night than time spent with family.

9. Family Talent Show – Put on a talent show for your family and have each member contribute by sharing their own special talent.
10. Scavenger Hunt – Create a scavenger hunt around the house for the kiddos to complete. You can make this as hard or easy as you would like.

Sickness Prevention

It can be challenging to keep your little ones from catching the illnesses that spread easily in classroom settings. This is especially true in the cold weather months! We want to help you avoid those sick days at home with a few of our favorite tips and tricks that will help keep you and your students germ free and healthy!

1. Wash your hands. This is a simple step but often a missed one. Washing your hands thoroughly and often will help you to decrease the amount of germs that you will encounter during the day. It is important that you remind your students to wash their hands more often and show them how to do it correctly. You can even provide a hand sanitizer for quick germ prevention throughout the day.

2. Sanitize your classroom. The more often you can do this, the better. This can mean cleaning your tables, toys, diaper changing stations and more. Sanitizer Wipes or Sprays are perfect for a quick clean up. We suggest making this a weekly event to ensure a clean classroom environment.

3. Build Immunity. It is important to have an overall healthy lifestyle to help fight sicknesses and ultimately prevent them. By eating healthy, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep, you can build your body's immunity. This will help to provide the body with the extra strength it needs to fight the germs that are encountered every day.