End of the year school project

Last year I interned in a first grade classroom. On my last day I had a craft and accompanying read-aloud ready to help the kids create a thank you for their awesome teacher! There was a substitute for half the day so it was a surprise for the teacher when she returned :)

The book is The Day They Smelled a Skunk at Peanut Butter Pond by Lael Littke



The premise of the story:
A skunk wanted to go into town to eat his favorite ice cream. He tried to go to the ice cream shop but the people shooed him away because of his smell. He didn't realize he smelled bad and his forest friends have to break it to him nicely and tell him that they love him anyway. All his friends help him get to the ice cream shop by buying perfume and spraying the scent all over town while they walk to the shop. The people smell the skunk mixed with the perfume and, instead of being mad, the smells remind them of good times they had (camping, visiting grandma, etc.) They reminisce while the forest animals get their yummy ice cream.

Based on this read aloud, I created an art project for the first graders to share their sweet memories with their teacher. I printed large ice cream shapes.  Each child remembered a sweet memory they had with their teacher and wrote it down. After I helped them correct the basic spelling, they copied their memory onto their ice cream shape.  The children painted them using water color paints. I asked them to use light colors so the writing would show up, but they had a hard time remembering this. So, after the paint dried (only about 20 minutes), I traced over their writing with a fine-tipped sharpie.

Then I cut an ice cream cone from construction paper and created a title paper and hung it all up in the hallway. Here's how it came out:

The picture is a little fuzzy but the purple paper says "Sweet Memories with Miss Gregory"

I recommend this book for a similar craft activity or for a character-building lesson because it also has a message about embracing our differences.