Mother's Day

Here's a little peak into what my class did for Mother's Day!

First, we started off with Arlene's Mother's Day Traditions Around the World unit.  LOVED it!

The kids read a nonfiction article about how different countries around the world celebrate Mother's Day.  They located the countries on a map and took notes about what they read.  Then they answered comprehension questions and filled out a Venn diagram to compare a country of their choice with the United States.  Arlene included a paragraph organizer and also a final draft paper for students to write about the country's celebrations they like the best.  The kids thought this was interesting and I loved how scaffolded the lesson was the entire way.  It was perfect for my class!

There are tons more activities included in this pack, but we also did a matching activity with the countries and facts about their Mother's Day traditions and a fun activity where students learned about famous mothers.

We then made a set of coupons from Arlene's pack and made origami envelopes to put them in.  You can find directions for the envelopes here.

A couple of weeks ago we made pinch pots out of ceramic clay, thanks to a generous Donorschoose project.  They got bisque fired and we glazed them last week.  I begged politely asked the art teacher to glaze fire them before Friday.  He was so sweet and did!  I was so thankful, because I needed them for our last Mother's Day goody - soap!

I ordered soap from Joanns.com a month ago and it didn't come in time!  Never.ordering.from.them.again!  Thankfully, I had a presentation in Maui last week, so I could go to Ben Franklin crafts and pick up a block of clear glycerin soap and some soap coloring.

I also used some essential oils I already had.  I got them so I could make homemade bug spray from this pin.  Bugs be crazy 'round here!  I had to dilute the oils with water because I read never to add essential oil directly to soap.  

I got to work and chopped the soap block into chunks.  I then filled a 2 cup Pyrex bowl with them.  I put it in the microwave for 1 minute and it came out completely melted.

I mixed in the coloring and added the diluted scent.  I first made some green that I could cut up into chunks and drop into blue soap.  I poured the green soap into a meatloaf pan, let it melt, then cut it up.  I also poured some green in the very top of my mold to add some dimension to my soap.

I then made blue soap, poured it into molds I already had from making crayons, and dropped in some of the green chunks.  You definitely do not need to add the different colored chunks.  I was just playing around with it.

I put them in the freezer and let them harden.  This is what it looked like when I popped it out of the mold!  Peppermint scented flip flops!  Love!

This was the set I made at home.  When I did it at school, I broke the kids into 3 groups, based on their color choice: pink, blue, or green.  I scented the pink soap with pink grapefruit, the green with peppermint, and the blue with lavender.  I let the kids pick which mold they wanted: heart, flower, seashell, or flipflop.  I then used my neighbor's microwave to heat the soap and put them in the staff fridge to harden.  While I was working with the small groups, the rest of the class was working on their Mother's Day Around the World paragraph from Arlene's pack with an assistant teacher.   

How did you celebrate Mother's Day?