First Day of School Activities- Linky Party

Thinking about the first day already gives me the first day excitement/jitters!!!  When the students come in on the first day of school they have a small Ziploc bag with a ball of uncolored playdough.  Inside the ball of playdough is a few drops of food coloring.  They squish the playdough while it is in the bag.  If the playdough magically turns colors that means we are going to have a fantastic year making new friends and learning!  After it starts to change colors, the students take it out of the bag to blend the color and create the letters of their name.  I love hearing the excitement when it starts to change colors!! 

This summer I taught an Eric Carle class and I thought I might try to do this project on the first day or week of school, because who doesn't like to get messy during the first week of school.  Our ending project for the summer school class was to paint paper using many colors and textures and create it into a name banner.  We started out painting a background color.  Then we chose another color and a tool to add texture (q-tip, cotton ball, stamps, sponge, etc.)  Then the students chose a third color to add with bubble wrap.  When the painted paper was full of their favorite colors and dry, we used stencils to trace and cut out the letters of their name.  The letters were then glued on and decorated to create a wonderful name banner.