A Gingerbread Freebie!

Can you say, "four more days!!"? Wait, I shouldn't be so excited for break, right? lol... 

We will be doing a bit of gingerbread this week and I usually always do a "which part of the man did you bite first" math graphtivity... but, there just isn't enough time this week with snowman day in the mix! Then I intended to make a gingerbread house and have them graph from that but the time has slipped by...

So, I put together this little worksheet that my kiddos are going to do as one of their math centers with a picture of a gingerbread house :) Copy front to back...quick and easy! Click each pick to download and enjoy!

Holiday Hoopla! and freebies!

Yes... I still have one more week of school! Ahh! My kids are going bonkers, yesterday they were at recess chanting "9 more days till Christmas!" Can I just say next week will be VERY interesting...

To keep them interested I have been doing a bunch of  holiday hoopla! And thanks to some great ideas in bloggy word I have been able to do some great activities! This week we did a version of Cara Caroll's Elf Application. But we used Jan Brett's The Wild Christmas Reindeer and I changed the app to fit hiring an elf to "ready the reindeer"

yes... world instead of would, we're working on that :)

This next week I am super excited to do our Mouse to the Movies day (another Cara inspiration). I put together a couple of workshop worksheets to go along with our book; a long a word sort, independent cause and effect and a response writing page. Click the pics to download.

We are also gearing up for snowman day. My kiddos will be doing all things snowman and snow related. I will post about it when we finish but here are a couple of sneak peek freebies... (click to download!)

We will be sequencing how to build a snowman whole class, but they will be sequencing the life of a snowman independently by ordering these cards and writing about the events.

18 word cards to be put into alphabetical order (3, 4 and 5 at a time) with a recording sheet

 Have a happy weekend everyone!

Santa Tree Pattern

Hello All :)

Here is the Santa Tree Pattern! Click the pic to download and Enjoy!

The Polar Express December Quilt

On Friday we got to do our December quilt. December's is one of my favorites because it teams up with The Polar Express, such a Christmas classic. I use the polar express all month long because we "ride the polar express" for our holiday party before break. The kiddos get hot cocoa with candy cane stirs, cookies, and they get to watch the movie. I am definitely considering letting them wear their pjs this year...

OK, back to the quilt...

We read the story and talk about the first gift of Christmas.Then the kids write what they would ask Santa for if they got to receive the first gift of Christmas. Usually they all pick a DS... a DS, really? But this year I has some new and more creative requests; a watch, heart stickers, a gold coin, a clock etc..

Then we make the train quilt square. I pre-cut the the train, they glue and bubble cut on red, use a pencil in paint to add falling snow, stretch two cotton balls for the ground snow, I hot glue a yarn bow to the train and I add their school picture where the conductors window would be.

I love this book for so many reasons, it is great to share it with my class. Do you do The Polar Express?

Oh and the link to Santa-Tree will be posted soon :)!
Happy Saturday!

It's SANTA-TREE!

OK... this is it... the one and only SANTA-TREE!

Tree on the front, Santa on the back; hang and spin!

The picture doesn't do it justice. This is my FAVORITE holiday craft that we do in class. I LOVE it! Seriously, the ooos and aaahhs from the kids doesn't compare to the excitement I get from this dang project. I mean it's a Santa AND a tree all in one.... L-O-V-E! I wish I had come it with it, but I picked it up from my district's TRC one year and have done it ever since.

I usually wait till the last week before break to do this VERY labor intensive project, but we were able to squeeze it in early this year so I could hang it up! Hooray!

I like to pair this activity with the skill compare and contrast... how? you ask... with these two books.

We read both stories (not back to back, but within a few days of each other) and talk about their similarities and differences.

Then the kids do this follow up independent activity (which you can get HERE), while I work with my strugglers on the skill.

Same: They both go in a house Different: One had Santa the other has Goldilocks

If you are interested in the Santa Tree pattern let me know, and I'll post it!

And... one more fun little project that we do for the holiday is this reindeer. It is a fun direct instruction cutting project great for giving the kiddos a chance to practice tracing, cutting squares into circles and rectangles into ovals, and the awful task of cutting out a triangle from the rectangle (I have to have MILLIONS of extras for this; tons of "it's okay, just try again" going on for this project). But, in the end they come out super cute.

The girls stick a bow in their antlers and the boys tuck it under the nose as a bow tie. I'm sure you you can figure this little project out on your own, but if you are interested in the paper dimensions let me know!

Okay... that's enough, LOL! Happy Wednesday!

Polar Pals on TPT!

I just posted my Polar Pals Math Activities unit on TPT. I hope you check it out!

 

I'll be back soon with a great holiday activity! 

It's Bud's Day Out!

This week we read Bud's Day Out in HM. I LOVE this story. Most weeks I could live without the anthology story provided by HM, but not this one. It is cute, easy to follow, has a great pictures and the kids can totally relate to the main character. So, this story gets a little "extra love" in my class.

I made theses story summary cards (inspired by Mrs. Bainbridge) and worked through a story retell...for the first time the kids did surprisingly well and we will definitely use these cards more. Click the pick to get them too!

the cards are: somebody, wanted, but, so, and

First the story's background... Bud gets away. Ben and his mom find him causing trouble in the pet shop. They get Bud, help clean up and apologize to the shop owner. The shop owner gives Ben a book titled, The 10 Rules for Dogs, to read to Bud.

So we talked rules for dogs and made a long list. The kids came up with everything from "always give me kisses to don't potty in the house"! Then they set off to write down the 4 most important rules for their dog.

1. don't fight 2. keep your leash on 3. do not bark at other dogs 4. listen to me

After, we put together my replica of Bud and had him hold the rules. I think they came out precious.

loving the ring around the eye!

Could you use this pattern too? I hope so... if not now...maybe at Easter? (run him on white and have the ears pointing up!) Click the pic to get the patten and the writing page :)

Have a happy Saturday! I will be shopping and decorating our Christmas tree. Hooray!