Here you will find links and tutorials for all of the projects that I've led in Kids Club. Even if you've never joined us for Kids Club, I'm sure you can enjoy our projects and fun lessons, since they are great for the classroom (or homeschooling, too). My lessons are geared towards children ages PreK and up. Scroll down for fun ideas (and if you're a current Kids Club member, you'll find all of my projects and lessons here!)
*please note, this page contains affiliate links to Amazon. You can read more about my affiliate links on my Disclosure page.
2020 Kids Club at Branchburg Sports Complex
Want to join us? Check out Branchburg Sports Complex for our full schedule! We meet once a month from 9am-11am. Our group is for kids ages 3-6. You can find out how to register and see all of our meeting dates here.
March Kids Club
In March we celebrate Read Across America Day, so local author Felicia Sanzari Chernesky joined us to share her amazing stories. She read us Sun Above and Blooms Below, and we made some cute Spring chick paper bag puppets to celebrate! We played with our St. Patrick's Day themed sensory table, colored coloring sheets, and enjoyed our delicious treats from Duck Donuts. Then we spent time in the BSC Play Maze!
February Kids Club
February is National Children's Dental Health Month, so we partnered with Branchburg Pediatric Dentistry for a fun 'dental-themed' Kids Club! We played with cereal and bean sensory tables, completed coloring sheets and played with friends! We read the story Pony Brushes His Teeth by Michael Dahl. Jasmine from Branchburg Pediatric Dentistry taught us all about healthy teeth and gums, including why it's important to go to the dentist, how to properly brush and floss, and what foods are good for our teeth. She even gave us special dental goodie bags to take home! Thanks, Jasmine! We made a cotton ball tooth craft (we 'cleaned' the paper teeth with cotton balls) and enjoyed our delicious donut treats from Duck Donuts of Green Brook. Then of course, we played in the Branchburg Sports Complex Play Maze! It was a blast! You can also print out a fun song called Brush, Brush, Brush (all about teeth!). Print your free copy here.
January Kids Club (our World Premiere!)
We read a fun story called If You Give a Dog a Donut by Felicia Bond. We played with cereal and pom-pom sensory tables, colored pictures, read our story, and decorated our own paper plate donuts with paper sprinkles! We heard from a special guest, Ms. Carrie, who owns Duck Donuts of Green Brook. Then we enjoyed our own delicious Duck Donuts! Yummy! After our donut snack, we sang The Disappearing Donut Song (which you can print here) and finished off our premiere Kids Club with plenty of time in the Play Maze!
February Kids Club - Stay Tuned!
-to be held on February 3, 2020 at Branchburg Sports Complex
2018-2019 Kids Club Meetings
OCTOBER: CREATIVITY - We read The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane Derolf, and made our own travel crayon boxes. We also decorated paper cows to express our creativity.
Helpful Items: empty crayon boxes, blank cards for box covers, rubber cement (to glue decorated cover to box, crayons
NOVEMBER: GRATITUDE: - We read Turkey on the Table by April George, then added our own gratitude feathers to our turkey! We also made foam turkey ornaments for Thanksgiving decorations.
Helpful Items: foam turkey craft kit (this is not the exact one we used but it's similar), Turkey on the Table book kit
DECEMBER: GENEROSITY: We read Snow Family by Daniel Kirk, and learned that being generous doesn't always mean giving people money or presents. We followed up by making our own no-sew sock snowmen (blog tutorial to follow!).
Helpful items: kids white tube socks, puffy yarn, fabric markers, fiber-fill, pom-poms, fabric glue, rubber bands
JANUARY: DETERMINATION: We had a special visit from Sensei Ed of Westling's Martial Arts! He taught us all about determination. We learned some fun karate moves and even got to break a board with our bare hands!!
Helpful links: Westling's Martial Arts is a wonderful place to learn karate, as well as build confidence, reduce anxiety, and practice self-control. Sensei Ed is patient, kind, understanding, and encouraging! Please check out his wonderful dojo if you're considering martial arts for your
child. You can find more information at: https://www.westlingsmartialarts.com/
FEBRUARY: KINDNESS: We had a special guest named Grace who told us all about her lemonade stand, Love You Sister Lemonade, and how she helps to raise money for orphans in Sudan. Then we made a "Kindness Quilt," out of special hand prints that might look pretty all by themselves, but look even better joined together. Kindness means more when it is shared by others!
Helpful links: Read more about Grace Anna's lemonade stand on the Love You Sister Facebook page! Print out your own free copy of the Collaborative Kindness Hands on the Teachers Pay Teachers website here.
MARCH: COURTESY: Special guests from Cub Scout Pack 190 joined us to teach us about Courtesy and what it means to be polite, courteous and kind. We read a story and made scout 'cootie catchers' to help us remember our courtesy skills! We also colored some pictures of courtesy, honesty and kindness.
Helpful links: The book we read was called The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman. You can also learn how to make your own cootie catcher here.
APRIL: COOPERATION: We talked about COOPERATION and what it means to work together as a team. We read two stories, Max's Chocolate Chicken (and Max was not very cooperative in this story!) and TOGETHER. Then we had a fun Spring Egg Hunt in the Play Space! But our eggs were all numbered halves- we had to work as a team to find the matching halves and connect them together again. When we found all 20 and connected them correctly, we each won a prize!
Helpful links: Our books this month were Max's Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells and Together by George Ella Lyon. Together might be out of print, but you can purchase it used on Amazon or see if it's in your local library!
MAY: COURAGE: Many thanks to Miss Sabrina for filling in for me this month! We read a fun story about courageous little letters called, Alphabet Rescue by Audrey Wood. We also had special visitors from Flemington Rescue Squad 49, who taught us why it's important to be courageous. We were so excited to see a real ambulance and get to ride on the gurney! Many thanks, FRS49 for visiting us this month! We are very grateful.
JUNE: FINALE: We had so much fun in Kids Club this year! We finished out our club with a book called Pig Kahuna by Jennifer Satler. This book helped us review ALL of our Core Value words, including COURTESY, KINDNESS, COURAGE, DETERMINATION, CREATIVITY, COOPERATION, GRATITUDE and GENEROSITY. Then we decorated a wooden picture frame to help us remember our jobs as Core Value Ambassadors. Everyone received a Chick-fil-A Flemington goody bag to take home, too!
Helpful links: You can find the book, Pig Kahuna by Jennifer Satler through this link on Amazon. The wooden picture frames were found at Michael's, and the markers were washables from Crayola.
Below are the Kids Club projects we did in 2017-2018, so feel free to scroll through our archives below!
2017-2018 Kids Club Meetings
OCTOBER: CREATIVITY- We painted rocks to hide around town. If our rocks were found and brought back to Chick-fil-A, the finders would get a special gift!
Materials used: Sharpie Paint Markers, Posco Paint Pens
Helpful Items: Hide and Seek Rock Painting Kit
NOVEMBER: GRATITUDE - We created Gratitude Bags to give to someone we love. We filled the bags with special symbolic items, and each one had meaning to show gratitude. You can find the print-outs for our Gratitude Bags through this link from Teachers Pay Teachers.
DECEMBER: GENEROSITY - We read a fun book called The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas by Laura Murray, which was all about giving to others during the holidays. Then we made our own 'stuffed' gingerbread men out of paper!
JANUARY: COURTESY- We made our own paper plate cow masks ('courteous cows') using printables from Six Clever Sisters (click here for their tutorial and free cow mask printables).
FEBRUARY: KINDNESS -We read a special story about kindness called PlantPet by Elise Primavera, then we played a fun game of Valentine Bingo.
Helpful Items: Valentine's Day Bingo Game
MARCH: COURAGE- We read an excellent story about overcoming worries called Jonathan James and the What If Monster by Michelle Nelson-Schmidt. Then we made paper plate rainbows to remember "there's always a rainbow after the rain!" You can find a complete tutorial of my paper plate rainbows right here on the blog.
APRIL: COOPERATION - This was a very special Kids Club, since we got to meet members of the Seeing Eye Dog club! Miss Sandy talked to us about what it's like to raise a seeing eye puppy, and then we got to meet the seeing eye puppies ourselves! We also read a wonderful book about cooperating with a seeing eye dog called, Looking Out for Sarah by Glenna Lang.
MAY: DETERMINATION - More special guests came to see us this month! Sensei Ed from Westling's Martial Arts Academy in Flemington came to talk to us about Determination. He brought his brown and black belt students along, and they taught us some basic martial arts moves, too!
JUNE: Kids Club Finale - We had a BIG party to celebrate our last Kids Club of the year! We each earned certificates and t-shirts, since we were now official Core Value Ambassadors! The Flemington Police Department was on-hand to present us with our certificates, and we finished off the morning with a Chick-fil-A catered buffet breakfast! Yummy! Then we made colorful sand art bottles to keep as reminders of all the fun we had this year. You can read my tutorial here about how to make your own sand art (with salt!), and check my links below for the supplies we used.
Helpful Items: sand art bottles, art sand, mini funnels
