Yesterday I celebrated New Years with my daughter at home, having a very low-key kid centered celebration.  So I thought I'd share what worked for us.

To start, I searched Pinterest and found a ton of fabulous ideas.  I loved the balloons, but didn't want to blow them up, so I made bags for each hour.  I set everything up the night before and put a short note describing the activity/craft, along with the supplies in the bag (if they fit).  Most of the items for crafts were purchased at the Dollar Tree and the activities were freebies from TPT.

Here's what it looked like to start:

I had bags beginning at noon going until 11:55 pm, so we could be ready to ring in the new year at midnight.  My daughter was so excited to open each bag and it made the day go by very quickly.

Our first activity was playing with silly string.  We went outside and chased each other around.  As a disclaimer, this did not last long before the cans ran out.  But since my daughter is 6 and we'd never had a silly string fight before, she didn't mind.

Next we decorated party hats.  The hats came in an 8 pack at the Dollar Tree and the glitter pens came in a 10 pack with 2 of each color shown (I put the other 5 in a later bag).  Similar to the silly string, the glitter glue didn't last long for my daughter and I (granted she is a little bit heavy-handed when I comes to this), but it was enough for the 2 of us and for $1 I'm not complaining!

I found this Slurpee coupon that my daughter got from soccer and put that in a bag since it expired yesterday.  She loved this and couldn't wait to get her Slurpee!  Bonus, it was free!

I had planned to make a wishing wand, but ended up making a stained glass wishing star with tissue paper.  I love how this turned out.  I used a template from KinderKay which is a freebie in her store and wrote my daughter's 2015 wishes around the frame.  She then filled it in with tissue paper squares and I laminated it.

At 4:00 pm we made rice crispy treats.  I didn't put any of the supplies in the bag, but she was excited nonetheless!

Next we decorated our toasting glasses.  We used the other 5 glitter glue pens for this.  The glasses were a set of 6 for $1.

Here was another food bag. I had planned to make breakfast for dinner, but we ended up going out with my parents.

Santa left Uno in her stocking and we've been playing as a family ever since.  This bag challenged us to see who the game champ would be!

Being a teacher, I had to squeeze in some work.  I used an add and color freebie from Triple the Love in Grade 1. Then we read a book.  At this point my daughter was getting sleepy, so she sat on the couch to rest and she was asleep by 8:45!

So I put her to bed and we opened the rest of the bags on New Year's Day!

 

This bag had ring pops to ring in the new year in New York (since we're on the west coast).

Next, we broke out the glow in the dark bracelets, which would have been way more fun at night, but since she's 6 she loves accessorizing!

 

 

The 11:00 pm bag had photo booth props which are a freebie in Deena Jump's store. I didn't have any dowels at home, so I just attached straws to use to hold them up.

 

Our final bag had a noise maker my daughter made last weekend at Lakeshore's weekend craft event.

I have to say that this was such a fun night/next day!  My daughter was eagerly looking forward to each bag and it gave us time to just hang out and do simple, fun stuff together.  Also, it was cheap!  I spent less than $10 at the Dollar Tree on the supplies and some things I already had on hand.

This could easily be adapted to your classroom if you wanted to do this when you go back.  There are lots of freebies and great resources to celebrate the year and simple ideas that can be a fun brain break to ease yourself and the kids back into the school routine.

How did you bring in the new year?

Read more »

Brandi

I know I'm breaking the 2 posts in 1 day rule, but I'm so excited to be back in the blogging world!  Today I'm linking up with Diane from Fifth in the Middle for her Blogging Resolutions and with Blog Hoppin' for their Welcome 2014 linky party!  

First up are my blogging resolutions:

Like I said, I'm excited to be back to blogging.  I have let it fall by the wayside since school started and I feel like that was a manifestation of my life.  I haven't been truly living, just merely existing...not doing things that make me happy, just doing the things I need to do to get by.  I won't be doing that anymore!  As part of Tara's 1 for Me linky, I said that I am going to make me a priority, which means doing things that make me happy.  Blogging makes me happy so I will be getting back to that on a consistent basis!

When I started blogging and reading blogs, I loved learning what other teachers were working on in their classes and what strategies and techniques I could incorporate into my classroom.  I need to make sure that I stay true to that and really focus on sharing content.  Now, I love a good linky party (as you can see by all the parties I've joined the last few days!), but I really want my blog to be a resource for me and others and a place I can look back and reflect on to see growth as a professional.

In order to post more content, I need to take more pictures and share what I'm doing in the classroom.  I treated myself to a new camera for Christmas, so I plan to keep my basic point and shoot in the classroom and strictly use it for classroom pictures.  This way there's no excuse for not capturing all the fun and learning I plan to have in my classroom in the coming months!

Finally, I want to make sure that I read more blogs and leave genuine comments.  I love getting comments on my blog and replying via email to keep conversations going with the people that take the time to stop by and say hi (as a quick side note, make sure you are not a no-reply blogger.  Sometimes it's hard to get back to the blog to comment on people's comments and I truly do like responding to comments, so please make sure your settings are correct so people can respond to you via email.  Jivey has a fabulous tutorial you can use HERE to make sure you are not a no-reply blogger!)  I plan to try to make at least 2-3 comments on people's blogs each day!

Next on the linky party train is Blog Hoppin's Welcome 2014!

Fun and family are 2 things that I will be working on this year!  

I have been blessed to be able to purchase Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm passes this year, and plan to get Sea World passes when they discount them for teachers.  I want to take mini vacations as much as possible to create memories for my family.  I also am saving up to go to San Diego as our major vacation this summer.

Also in terms of family time, I want to be more present with my family and not be so absent and focused on what I need to do for work and other things.

For fun, I want to up my "style" this year.  I've been in frumpy mode far too long!  I've cleaned out my closet of things I cannot or don't want to wear anymore and went shopping for some new clothes.  My goal is to be dressed in clothes that make me feel cute, as well as put on make up on a daily basis.  If you follow my on Pinterest, I've been pinning a lot to my "All Things Girly" board and am excited to utilize some of the make up tips I've found.

Who's ready to rock the new year!

Read more »

Brandi