Here’s what you will need:

Large glass rocks from the Dollar Tree

Photos of your students printed out

Mod Podge (I used Elmer’s for my tester and it worked great! But I trust and love Mod Podge!)

Magnet circles from Wal-Mart (they are sticky-backed and come in a pack of 18)

Ta-da! You’re finished! I’m glad I did a tester because as you can see, these turn out way better if the photo has a nice light background. Print your photos big enough to fill the glass rock too.

So here, I’ve rounded up my TOP TEN favorite ways to use solo cups in the classroom.1. 100TH DAY SOLO CUP TOWERS

Having your students work together to build a structure using 100 cups is a great way to encourage cooperation and teamwork on the 100th day of school.

2. SOLO CUP WORD WORK

I created a recording sheet to add some accountability to this station, which you can snag by clicking the image below.

3. SOLO CUP BOWLING
Set up the solo cups just like bowling pins. Your students can practice subtraction and use math talk to tell how many they knocked down and how many cups are left standing. Another idea is to write sight words on the cups. As your students knock down the cups, they must read the sight words on them. I love this variation from Coffee Cups and Crayons!

4. USE TO CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING 
Use green, yellow, and red solo cups to check for understanding. You can use these with individual students or with students when working in groups. Students will place a green cup on top to indicate understanding, yellow if they are iffy, and red when they need help or are not understanding a concept. Check out this pin from The Ardent Teacher.

I’m going to put red and green cups next to each computer where my students work independently during station time. When the students are working problem-free, the green cup stays on top. But if they have a problem and need help, they can put the red cup on top. This will alert me from across the room where I’m doing guided reading, and I can make sure that my student-appointed “tech support helper” can get to them.


5. USE FOR BUCKET FILLERS
One of my favorite community-building books is Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. Mel from Seusstastic Inspirations used solo cups for her bucket filling display. I love it!

6. CARD HOLDERS
Just grab an exacto knife and cut a slit along the top. These make the perfect holder for signs. You could use these to hold directions for word work, I can lists, etc. These are signs from the Meet The Teacher Scavenger Hunt (made by Creativity to the Core) we did at the beginning of the year. Do you play card games with your students? These would work perfectly to hold their cards, since their little hands often have trouble!

7. PLAY BEARS IN A CAVE
This is one of my very favorite games for building number sense with my kinders, and I always use a solo cup as the “cave.” There are ___ bears total (you tell the students the total). If ___ bears are outside of the cave, then how many bears are inside? Check out this example from The Reading Corner below.

8. USE FOR 3D CRAFTS
This year, we made this adorable Elf craftivity from Jennifer of Crayons and Cuties in Kindergarten. I’ve since found adorable craft ideas for Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and  just about every holiday!

9. ADDITION MACHINE
This is one of my favorite ideas from Kelly at Sweet Sounds of Kindergarten. Students put math manipulatives in each cup and then add the total together!

10. STORAGE AND ORGANIZATION
Check out this adorable supply caddy from Smile Monsters. How perfect would these be in the center of your classroom tables? Or even on your desk?

I LOVE using liquid watercolors. They don’t get muddy and muddled together the way watercolor trays do. You don’t have to continually dip your paintbrush into water to mix the color. It’s just plain FASTER. Watercolors are the perfect medium for adding color to directed drawings. Bottom line–they rock! I inherited a huge stash of liquid watercolors 10 years ago when I first started teaching, and I am just now running out (sadness!) So I decided to try to whip up a batch of it myself using dried out washable markers. Because I have so. many. dried. out. markers. Is it just me, or do the cra-z-art caps REFUSE to go back on? Sorry, I digress. Read on for the how-to.

You will Need:

Procedure:

Plop the dried-out markers into the water. Leave them there for 24 hours. 

That’s it! Simple, right!? And check out how cool the markers look when they come out.

I thought it was cool. 24 hours seemed to be the perfect amount of time. The colors were nice and vibrant!

Test it out and let me know how it worked for you!

I am here today to spread the gospel of the glue sponge! If you haven’t fallen in love with glue sponges yet, then I’m guessing you haven’t tried them! I first learned about glue sponges from Smedley’s Kindergarten Smorgasbord.  I thought it was a cool idea, but I also thought, “nah, I’m doing OK.” Glue sticks and bottled glue hadn’t yet become my enemies.

Enter interactive notebooks. We started going through about 500 glue sticks a day. When we tried glue bottles, the phrase “dot, dot, not a lot” was forgotten by just about every student, and they made a huge mess. Glue was now a problem that needed to be beaten.

So I made some glue sponges, and I will never go back!
Making glue sponges is super easy. Just gather bottles of white glue, sponges, and plastic containers with lids. I buy these Rubbermaid containers which are cheap but last the whole year. At the end of the year, I just throw away the whole container.