Chirstmas Rewind!

I know this is a little late, but worth the post non-the less!

I told you all that we were going to do If  You Take a Mouse to the Movies... we did all of my worksheets that I posted a few weeks ago and we also did a few fun projects!   First we read the story and made Cara Carroll's cute mouse! I just love her projects over at The First Grade Parade :)

If you take me to the movies I will want popcorn with chocolate balls.

Then we did some popcorn fact families and strung them on our Christmas Tree! Can I just say the kids LOVED this!! Some kiddos got pre-determined fact family numbers and other got to make up their own. Then they wrote each equation on a popcorn paper and strung them on the string.

As they finished I helped the kids place them on our tree.

Okay... its not a real tree and we attached with tape, but hey, it totally works!

Then we read this great book that I got from Scholastic in November.

Did you get this one too? Santa looses his reindeer and asks some farm animals to help him out. The kids thought the pictures were funny and what a great book for a story response... What animal would you ask to help you, if your reindeer got away?

I would want a horse to pull my sleigh because they are faster than a dog.

I would want a bunny to pull the sleigh because they can jump up.

Thanks for going back with me :) See you tomorrow for a rewind of Snowman day and some fun freebies!

A Quick Update and Thank yous!

I hope you all had a fabulous holiday and new years celebration... mine was quite low key this year, which was nice :) I know I have been MIA for a few weeks, but I spent the holidays in so cal with the fam, away from school work and the computer (a nice little break from all things school!).

I am quite lucky to have this week off (ok... I wasn't saying that when I was working up until Christmas, but it is working out in the end) so I can relax without the hustle and bustle of the holidays. So... needless to say this week will be filled with posting! I have a cute New Years project, a penguin unit, and pics from our snowman day all coming later this week, stay tuned!

Also, I want to thank Johanna, the Klinger Cafe, Sheree. Mrs. Smith, Sara, and Mrs. Cupcake for awarding me the Leibster award. You all are so sweet! I am passing the award along to these four blogs...

1. Sharing Kindergarten
2. New Adventures in First Grade
3. Fanatically First Grade
4. Criss Cross Applesauce Learning


Have fun checking them out and I'll see you in a couple days with lots of fun!

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!