It's that fateful day! Right before the holiday, or at the end of whatever your current unit is, and you need to pack everything up and send it home, so that parents can ooh and aah over your creative genius! Now, if you've just finished a run of the mill unit- say transportation,- you'll pack up the crafts and send them home, explanations included in the newsletter. But when holidays roll around, like today when sending home Chanukah crafts, I think it's important to wrap them specially in order to convey the importance and "specialness" of the contents. It's a way to tell parents, babysitters, or whoever's picking the kids up to handle the crafts with care, and that the contents should be examined with joy and fanfare.

So how do you do it? Well, that depends on what and how much you're sending home. We sent home our Menorahs and Menorah mats today. I wrapped the menorahs in cellophane, tied them off with some repurpose fabric remnants and trims, then taped the ensemble to the Menorah mat. I placed them on each child's cubby, ad had a sign on the door asking parents to please take their child's crafts from there.

When I send home more than that, I try to find paper gift bags. If you don't have the budget for that, give the kids regular paper shopping bags, and have them decorate the bags with glitter, paint, stickers, sky's the limit! This also adds another craft to your schedule, and the kids are doubly excited to be taking home crafts in the bag they "made".

Then, a nice touch is to have the kids pack up their crafts by themselves. You can do this either by setting up the table with a bag and each child's items stacked next to it, or 1 on 1 with the kids to reinforce literacy, and have them find their crafts t place in their bag.

Finally, during your goodbye circle or routine- take one child's bag, and show the children what they'll be taking home. Go through each item, reminding them of the process and what it is. This also reinforces the kids' excitement when taking the crafts home.

Happy Holidays!

My favorite Fall fruit is apples because of their versatility. There are so many fun things to do with apples, here are some ideas:

Apple Graphing- Many of you probably do some sort of apple taste test for Rosh Hashanah, but if you didn't, you can now! Prepare a chart with each child's name followed by 3+ blank columns, depending on how many apples you'd like to taste. The classics are of course, Granny Smith (green), Golden Delicious (Yellow), and Red Delicious (Red). If your kids are older, you may want to include Gala or Fuji and point out it's many colors, for fuji you can also point out its crispiness. Prepare slices of each apple for each kid to taste, and pass them out one at a time. Remind kids that we all have different tastes. You may want to give the kids 2 at a time, and ask which was their favorite, documenting on the chart. When you've tasted all apples, describe and show the results to the kids.

 Apple Stamping- Slice apples in half horizontally so that the flower of seeds is visible, and remove the seeds. Use these apple halves as stamps to either dip in ink or paint and create beautiful prints!

Applesauce- Cook apples on stovetop (if you teach older kids you can do this in your classroom with a hot plate) and place them in a bowl. Provide the kids with forks to mash the apples, and season with some cinnamon and sugar- delicious! You can even send some home in small plastic containers!

Fruit Leather- You can either make applesauce or use prepared applesauce for this. You'll need a well oiled baking sheet, and simply spread the applesauce about 1/4 inch thick and bake for 6-8 hours on lo (200-250). When it's done, it will simply peel straight off the pan. I like to give the kids some to taste and then bag the rest and send it home to share with the families.

Apple Mat- Follow the instructions to make Stained Glass except, cut out Apples from red, green or yellow construction paper, and fill in with appropriate colored tissue paper. You can also make the stained glass papers smaller, and add a small hole at the top to create a car hanger, door hanger, etc. (see the picture below).

Apple Cork Stamps- I don't remember where I saw the blog post with this idea, but it's too fabulous not to share! Cut 2 nicks opposite each other in the same end of a cork. This will be your stamp. You can dip into apple colored paints and press onto paper. Once it's dried, you can give the kids brown markers to draw stems.