100 Reasons to Celebrate!

Before I took over the classroom I have now, the previous teacher had started a chart of all the books the class had read. Their goal was to get to 100 books and then have a party. We were at about 75 when I started and I have been just as eager as the kiddos to get to 100 and celebrate with a 100 Book Party. 

Well today was that day! Here is a peek at our 100 Book Party. Our theme was “We Dig Reading!”

We started by “reading” our 100th book. We actually watched a short video production of The Very Quiet Cricket that I found here. This site has a bunch of great video versions of Eric Carle books and other favorites. The video wasn't too long either, only 7 minutes. Both my morning and afternoon classes were silent through the video.

We created crowns with the number 100 on the front to show off our awesome reading achievement.

Since we like to dig in and get a little messy, we had some “dirt cup” treats to snack on. I loved these as a kid! Chocolate pudding, graham cracker crumbles and a single gummy worm to top it off. Oddly enough, chocolate pudding was not a big hit with some of my kids. A few only ate the worms. Oh well!

To go along with our dirt and bug theme, I made special dirt play dough and we used little critters I found at the dollar store to play with. I highly recommend the recipe I used, which you can find here. To make mine look like dirt, I substituted 1/3 cup of the flour with cocoa powder. It not only gave it the brown color but made it smell delicious. (A little too delicious smelling for some of our kiddos who tried to taste it!)

 On another note, today was the start of Teacher Appreciation Week. The awesome PTA at my school have arranged a fun week with new surprises each day. Monday was "Bring Your Teacher A Flower Day!" My desk was jam packed with beautiful blooms from my kiddlettes. I have some of the sweetest little things in my class, I really am blessed.

Enjoy your week!