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.

What I Like About You - Valentine Craft

This Valentines day craft is the perfect gift for everyone on your valentines day gift list! You can use this craft as gifts for your student’s friends, parents or siblings. You can even set up these jars on each student’s desk and have them write a note to each classmate on Valentine’s day as a substitute for Valentine’s.






All you need is a jar and a few pieces of scrap paper cut into strips. If you are using this for a class, be sure to give enough strips for each student. You can also give your students time to decorate their jars before filling them with “things they like” about that person. Don’t forget to put out some construction paper, string, stickers, markers, and whatever else you might need for decorating!

Bee My Valentine

Valentine’s Day is approaching quickly and we have some great Valentine Ideas for you! We are starting off with this adorable Bee that is a great choice for all ages in your daycare or childcare center. All you need is construction paper in yellow, black and red, brown or black chenille stems, glue and a black marker.

Start by cutting out 6 large hearts. You will need 2 of each color. You will also need to cut out 4 small hearts using the red construction paper only.

Tip! You can easily cut out the perfect heart every time by folding the paper in half and cutting in a bit of a rain drop shape.

Now you are ready to start gluing your hearts into place. Using the black heart as your base, add a bit of glue to the upper half of the heart. Then add your yellow heart on top of it, leaving a small space of black at the bottom. Repeat this step with the next two hearts while continuing to alternate colors. This will give you the stripe effect of a real bee.

Next, take you big red hearts and glue them onto the back of your yellow and black heart stack with the bottom point of each heart meeting in the middle. This will create the wings of your bee. Go ahead and glue your chenille stems into place at the top of the yellow heart. You may want to tape these to make it sturdier.

You can now take your marker and add on your bee’s face. You can also add on the note seen above, “Bee my valentine”, or any other note of your choice.

Lastly, add your small hearts by either gluing or taping them onto the ends of the chenille stems and on the end of each side of the mouth.

Now you have a “BEEautiful” valentine to share with someone you love!

Outdoor Activites for Cold Weather

Hot Chocolate Stand – It’s the winter version of a lemonade stand! Have the kids help set up the stand and prepare the hot chocolate. This is a great way to teach children about money and other aspects of business. Then you can pick a charity of your choice to give the proceeds to!



Smores – A must have for winter weather, smores are the perfect treat for all ages! Set up a smores station and allow the kids to help make their own. If having an actual fire is too much of a hassle, try using a marshmallow fluff or putting the smores in the microwave. No matter which option you choose, these are guaranteed to be a delicious treat!



Bubbles – Most people think of bubbles for summer time fun, but they are actually perfect for cold weather too! When the weather drops down to below freezing, have your little ones bundle up and take them out with a set of bubbles. The bubbles will freeze in the cold air!
 




For more cold weather fun. meet us back here! We have lots of fun ideas to share with you in the new year!

Christmas Cookies

 This adorable melting snowman is the perfect cookie for a delicious treat and a good laugh. With the cookie of your choice, take some white frosting and spread it across the top. You can also try melting the icing in the microwave and pouring it onto the cookie. This will give the illusion that your snowman is melting. Next, add on a marshmallow to be the snowman’s head. Lastly, add on your snowman’s features with icing or food pens.

Reindeer Cookies are just as simple to make! Again, using the cookie of your choice, create your base. You will want your cookies to have a bit of an oval shape so you may need to have a cookie cutter handy. While the cookies are still a bit warm, add on two pretzels for the antlers and three m&ms for the eyes and nose. This is a great one for the kids to help with decorating! If you have trouble getting the features to stick, try using a bit of icing to hold things in place!

PureFUN! Supply wishes you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Meet us back here for our first blogs of 2016! 

Holiday Craft and Gifts Ideas – Holiday Handprints

Handprint Crafts are the perfect choice for all ages in your school, daycare or childcare center! With a little help from a teacher or parent, students can easily recreate these handprint crafts and use them as gifts for the holiday season. Add the following designs onto T-shirts, cards, ornaments and more!

Five little fingers create the perfect five little snowmen! Paint the entire palm of the hand along with the inner side of the fingers white and stamp down firmly to create the base. Finish off the snowmen by painting on their features and whatever accessories you would like them to have.

This adorable Santa handprint is easy to recreate. Start by stamping your handprint onto the top half of your page. Once you have made your handprint, flip the paper around so that the top is now the bottom and your handprint resembles Santa’s beard. (Fingers should point downward.) Next add on Santa’s facial features and of course his hat! Each of these can be painted on. To keep it easy for little ones, give them a circular paint sponge and let them stamp on the features. Lastly, add on a set of wiggle eyes!

 

Let’s not forget about the Reindeer that pull Santa’s sleigh! Have students make their handprint with their fingers spread apart. The fingers should be pointed downward with the palm towards the top of the base they are printing on. Finish off your reindeer with a set of hooves on the tips of each finger, a red nose on the tip of the thumb, a small tail opposite the thumb, reindeer antlers and an eye.

Holiday Crafts & Gift Ideas – Reindeer Prints

This Holiday crafted gift idea is sure to leave a print on the hearts of the ones who receive it! With just a few fingerprints you can create an adorable holiday card, bag, hat and more! All you need is brown finger paint or a brown stamp pad, red paint or a red marker, and a black thin tip marker.

Add your fingerprint to whatever white base you will be using. You can add enough prints to represent your family, one for each of Santa’s reindeer, or however many you would like. Try using different fingers to get the different sizes and prints.

Add the antlers, nose and eyes with your thin tip marker once the paint has dried. Lastly, take your red marker or red paint and add on your reindeer’s nose. You can add your favorite holiday greeting, a name or anything else you would like to decorate with underneath to finish things off.

Now you have an adorable gift to give to your loved ones this holiday season! This craft can be modified for all ages in your school or daycare center too!

Be sure to check back in here for more holiday gift ideas, crafts, snacks and more!

Thanksgiving Snack Ideas – Turkey Treats

 

This adorable cupcake makes for a sweet treat for the Thanksgiving holiday! Start with a vanilla iced cupcake. The cake can be whatever flavor you would like. Next add a circle in chocolate icing to create the body of your Turkey.

Tip! Put the icing container into the microwave for 60 seconds and scoop it into a Ziploc bag. Next, cut the corner of the Ziploc bag to create your very own decorating tool. Simply squeeze the icing into a circle and then fill it in.

Next take 5 candy corns and place them with the point towards the middle on the top side of your chocolate circle. For the head, take a yellow M&M and place it on the top center of the chocolate circle. Add a dot of orange icing on top of the M&M to make a beak and finish off by adding two dots for the eyes with a food marker.

Thanksgiving Snack Ideas – Healthy Treats

Turkey dips are a wonderful choice for adding some healthy options to your thanksgiving food selection. The first option is a ranch dip with a colorful variety of delicious bell peppers. The second gives a similar look using apples and a hummus dip. You could also use a caramel dip if you wanted to sweeten things up and put a healthier option on the desert table.

This tangerine turkey is a bright choice that will have your little ones begging for more. Cut a pear in half and create the feathers with an array of orange and apple slices. Use raisins or dark chocolate for the eyes and a peanut for the beak. Cheese makes for the perfect pair of feet. You can use cheese for the beak too for those with peanut allergies.

The final turkey treat includes the sandwich of your choice cut into the shape of a turkey body. Next, add carrots around for the tail feathers, raisins for the eyes, and a cashew for the beak.  Again, cut some cheese to create the legs and feet. You can even give your Turkey some grass to stand on by cutting up some celery.

Try adding a healthy drink to go along with your snacks with PureFUN! 100% Juice!`

Thanksgiving Crafts - Turkey Prints

Here’s another turkey craft to enjoy with your little ones. You will need finger paint in red, yellow and brown. Start by painting the hand red and stamping it three times with the palms meeting at the bottom to give it a “V” shape. Next add two yellow handprints between the three red ones to add some color to the feathers.

Next, paint the bottom of the foot brown and print it on top of the hand prints with the heel at the top and the toes at the bottom. Lastly, you can add on the beak, snood, feet and some wiggle eyes.

Now you have an adorable Turkey for the Holidays. You can even have students do this onto a t-shirt or a tote bag!

Thanksgiving Snack Ideas – Turkey Pizzas

It’s pretty rare to have a student who doesn’t enjoy pizza! This snack idea is all about creativity and can be modified to work around allergies, include favorite foods, be a healthy choice or maybe a not so healthy choice. It is all up to you!

     

You could even try giving each of the students a personal sized pizza and letting them decorate their own. The different ideas and ingredients used are always a fun surprise at the end! Plus, it’s a super yummy treat for snack or lunch time.

For more Thanksgiving snack ideas and craft ideas too, check back here!

Thanksgiving Crafts - Fingerprint Turkey

This fingerprint turkey is the perfect craft for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday! You will need finger paint in light orange or yellow, orange, red and brown. You will also need a bit of black and white paint as well for the finishing touches.

Lets get started! Begin by dabbing your pointer finger into the light orange or yellow color. Create an arc by printing your finger onto the page about 8-10 times. Next, take the red color and make a smaller arc beneath it using the same technique. Repeat this step once more using the red paint to complete the tail.

If you have gone for the facing forward Turkey, paint your thumb brown and stamp it vertically into the middle to be the body of the turkey. If you have gone for the side view you will want to print your thumb horizontally from the middle and then add a head by printing in brown with your pointer finger vertically.

Don’t forget to add on the finishing touches with eyes, a beak, legs and feet! Now you have an adorable craft for Thanksgiving. Try having your students do this on the front of a blank card. Then have them write to someone they are thankful for and tell them why they are thankful for them.