Mother's Day Popsicle Stick Frame Gift

Happy Mother's Day! Despite checking Pinterest every year for a craft that might top it, I've had my Kindergarten class do the same gift for their mothers for the last five years.  It's unbeatable and very simple to recreate. Here is the wrapping I use:

Mother's Day gift from Kindergarten

I took simple brown paper bags and whole punched them. Then I used those holes to tie a bit of plastic ribbon through and make a bow on the front. 

                                              

                

These bags could also be used to wrap Father's day presents or use red and green paint, ribbon, or marker to decorate Christmas presents as well. 

hole punch the paper bag

The final product comes out quite nicely! I just love the hand print and I chose white because I happened to have a reel of white ribbon and white chalkboard marker on hand. Also, I was running short on time and not giving kids a choice to pick their favorite color and just use white for the hand prints made the process so much quicker!

Kindergarten Mother's Day Present

Inside the paper bag is the actual present. I have the kids paint popsicle stick frames for their mom. I add their picture inside holding a bouquet of flowers in the matching frame color. To date I only have two colors: pink for girls and blue for boys. They NEVER complain and love the choices. I allow two colors only mostly to cut down on cost since I shoulder the finances of the entire project. 

Mother's Day Frames and Picture

I pre build the frames with a hot glue gun to ensure durability. However, the kids paint the frames themselves which they find so fun. Before the frame dries I let them sprinkle glitter to add some sparkle. 

Painted popsicle stick frames

Above are the dried frames. I also buy foam paper from Walmart and sometimes from Michael's in the matching pink and blue colors. 

                                        

Then I cut the foam pages to fit perfectly behind the popsicle stick frames. Here are my pre cut stacks. 

Popsicle stick frame backings

I then use a hot glue gun to secure them to the back of the popsicle stick frames.

Incomplete Kindergarten crafts for Mother's Day

All they're missing in this stage is the kids' pictures. I had them hold a bouquet and I took the photos in horizontal format to fit in the frame the best way and added a magnetic strip to the back of each frame so that mothers have the option of putting the frame on the refrigerator or a file cabinet at their work. 

Magnetic strip on backside

Here is a close up of the frames just before I glued the magnetic strips to the back.

Boys' Popsicle Stick Frames

Girls' Popsicle Stick Frames

For the mother's day card, I had the kids create from scratch with markers and paper. I wanted to keep everything as simple and inexpensive as possible without losing any cuteness points. I added the frames and the card into the brown paper bag and sent it home with the kids on Friday. They were so happy! I hope their mom's enjoyed their gift. 

Beginning Addition in Kindergarten

To introduce the concept of addition, children must learn to first join groups. I rely on the sight words 'and' & 'is' to help with this concept. Kids are used to reading pattern sentences with sight words in reading and writing so the following number sentence frame is a natural bridging step.

" ____ and ____ is ____"  

as well as

" ____ is ____ and ____"

Beginning Addition in Kindergarten with sight words

Pictured above is a collage of bulletin board activities to help reinforce the joining groups concept. Here are the close up shots.

6 Flowers is 2 red flowers and 4 orange flowers

4 brown gum balls and 5green gum balls is 9 gum balls all together

3 red fish and 2 blue fish is 5 fish all together

4 orange gum balls and 8 purple gum balls is 12 gum balls all together

To download the above gum ball machine activity for FREE click here: "Addition Unit Freebie"

We also had a laminated math center using the gum balls theme. Some kids took to it right away and others need me to go around and double check their work. Either way they love using dry erase markers.

Addition math centers for Kindergarten

Dry erase markers Math Centers

Within the addition unit these activities are a part of there are also plenty of no prep printables to use as homework and class seat work.

My absolute favorites are cut and paste activities.

Kindergarten Addition using ten frames

Kindergarten Addition: Joining Groups

Kindergarten Addition : Joining Groups

If you would like to see the entire unit and perhaps purchase it for your preschool, transitional kindergarten, or kindergarten class click on the links below. It is reasonably priced and full of activities. 

Introduction to Addition Unit from Miss Campos on TPT

Click this link to see on TPT: Beginning Addition in Kindergarten by Miss Campos 2016
For a FREEBIE version of the gum ball drawing page click here: "Gum ball Machine Addition"

I will be working on the follow up activity real soon too. It will utilize the plus (+) and (=) symbols.

An InLinkz Link-up