Primary Beanbags

At the beginning of the year, my presidency and I decided to have a teacher in-service in Primary.

I wanted to give the teachers something they could use in their classes. Using some of the fabric I inherited from Grandma Ison, I decided to make beanbags. Lots and lots of beanbags. (I think I ended up making around 30!)

I also gave them a handout of ideas on how to use the beanbags during class time.

We can't thank our teachers enough. I hope they know how much we love and appreciate them. They make our Primary great!

Primary 2013

For the new year in Primary, it was out with the OLD...

..and in with the NEW!

Instead of the typical birthday pencils, we decided to give out crazy straws...

"Sip-sip HOORAY! It's YOUR birthday!" 

 We use the popsicle sticks in the cans (with each child's name on them) for taking turns during Sharing/Singing Time. We seemed to be getting a lot of "repeats", so I colored one of the tips red and started a new system...draw from the red end and turn the stick upside-down when the child is called on. When all the sticks have been used, start over again with the red tips showing.

Hopefully this will help with our repeat problem. :)

For our "spotlight" gift this year, we are giving out these customized (by me) lip balms. Actually I can't take full credit. I printed the labels off here, then cut them out, stuck them on and shrink-wrapped them with plastic sleeves for stick-ability and cuteness.

I also replaced our plain white tablecloth with a bright red one.. with polka dots! And we have a fancy mirror with the 2013 theme in vinyl, "I Am A Child of God".

I should take a picture of our Primary table to show you how CUTE it is...but do you think I have time for that??? :)

PS- We have 18 Sunbeams this year..yikes!

CTR

With the new year, came a new theme in Primary; Choose the Right...or CHEWS the right. For our Primary children's spotlight gift, we decided to give out CTR rings.

I wanted to contain and package them in a fun way. My first thought was a gumball-type machine with those plastic bubble containers that you get cheap-o toys in. I couldn't find them in a small enough quantity, for a decent price, so I came up with the tulle "wedding favor" like wrapping. It definitely would be cuter with the plastic bubbles for our gumball machine, but oh well it works.

This went so much better in my head. :)

12 Days of Christmas

As a gift to my primary class this year, I gave them the 12 Days of Christmas. A fun way to count down to Christmas and remember the Savior during the season.

The original idea was to use a real nativity set and leave a new piece on the doorstep each night, along with a poem about the piece. I knew that wouldn't work for me since I have 12 kids in my class.... too much money and too much delivery time.

So I did the affordable thing. I printed off this cute nativity set onto cardstock, cut them out and put a magnet on the back (so it could be displayed on a refrigerator or magnet board.)
Then I wrapped each piece individually, with it's corresponding poem and numbered them in the order they were to be opened. I put them into a large envelope and wrapped the envelope with wrapping paper, so it felt like a "real" Christmas gift. (I secretly hoped they weren't disappointed when they opened it.)

I've had several mother reports that the kids DID like it and are enjoying opening a new piece each night. Whew. Maybe it's the mom's being nice... or maybe they really are getting into the "reason for the season".

Merry Christmas!!!