Celebrate World Emoji Day

July 17 is celebrated as World Emoji Day (because July 17 is the day shown on the calendar emoji) and it’s the perfect day to plan a little emoji fun.

Emojis can be a way to talk about emotions, but they can also just be fun!

Do some easy drawing with the printable complete the emoji drawing activity from Look We’re Learning.

How well can you tell emojis apart? Test your powers of perception with an I spy emoji game printable from Paper Trail Design. Create Craft Love has a printable emoji bingo game, or you can make an emotional spin on Twister with this party game idea from The Activity Mom.

Make paper plate emoji masks with this crafty idea from Natural Beach Living. Or grab some fun emoji coloring pages from Cool 2B Kids for car rides and other times you need a quiet activity.

This optical illusion emoji spinner is a lot of fun to make, and you probably already have the supplies you need at home to make it. Grab the tutorial from Jane Hayes Creative.

Use yellow cups (or paint some yellow) and the printable from 10 Minutes of Quality Time to make a spinning emoji cup. You can also draw in your own favorite emojis if they aren’t included on the printable.

Speaking of favorite emojis, another fun activity would be to design your own emjoi. Is there something you love that you think needs a symbol (for me it’s knitting!)? Or a favorite food that’s missing from the lineup? Have kids (and adults!) design their own emoji and write or talk about why they picked what they did. You can even vote on which ones you’d like to see made into real emojis. Teach Simple has a printable on making your own emoji, or you can just draw it on regular paper.

Play guess the emoji! Do you really know what that emoji means? Check out this list from SmartPrix to see if that symbol means what you think it means. There are lots of emjoi quizzes online, but you can also make your own, where you use emjois to describe the name or plot of a book or movie and see if other people can guess what it is. Sort of like Pictionary without the drawing (and you don’t even have to be in the same room!).

Talk about Emotions with Emoji Playdough

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Advent Calendar Ideas for Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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