Five for Friday, January 9

 

The hubby and I went ice skating! Check out these Michelle Kwan moves!

 

 

 

This week we have been measuring EVERYTHING! I totally recommend checking out the blog by Kindergarten, Kindergarten. It's basically been my lesson plan this week because her ideas are so hands-on and inspire so much critical thinking!

 

I've been surprised this week at what my kids get and don't get.

 

Does that happen to anyone else??

 

For example, I gave my kiddos a popsicle stick and they had to find an object that was shorter and longer than that. No problem. The next day, I gave everyone an object, and as a class, they had to put the objects in order from longest to shortest.

 

I didn't take any pictures, so I'm stealing borrowing this one from Kindergarten, Kindergarten's blog

 

Oh. My. Gosh. You would have thought I asked them to solve world hunger! I get that they are two different skills, but I'm just baffled by how they can do one but not the other? A mystery. Today we tried again. We made wiggly worms and ordered the length of those. We still have some work to do....  =)

 

Another borrowed picture  =)

 

This week we also talked about winter. We read winter books and made text-to-self connections. We also used our sequencing words to tell how to build a snowman. We made snowmen using this puffy paint (by mixing 1 part shaving cream and 1 part glue together).

 

 

 

I spent a lot of this week updating my word families packs, and they are finally done! They're on sale in my TPT store through Saturday.

 

 

 

You can also get all 5 packs for half-price in this bundle!

 

These packs include picture and word cards, picture sorts, puzzles, practice sheets, magnet letter activities, and differentiated write-the-room activities.

(Pardon the product promotion. I'm just so super excited that these are finally finished!)

 

 

Not school related: How cute is this totally destructive dog?! I bought some Christmas toys for her in the after Christmas sales and she obliterated poor Rudolph in mere minutes. I believe she's what the dog toy companies call a "power chewer."

 

Also, Jenna may or may not get excited about going on walks...

 

  

That's all, Folks!

 

My First Ever Facebook Giveaway and a Sale: Word Family Bundle Style!

I hope everyone's had a GREAT week back! I'm so happy because my kids seem to remember the things they learned before break. PHEW! Maybe it's because I tell them to sleep with their hands over their ears so nothing leaks out (That's right. I'm that kind of weirdo teacher. What must the parents think!?)   =)

I stayed away from school work over the break, and it was so nice to turn off my brain for 2 weeks! This week, however, I've jumped into updating my word family packs. It took forever to comb through the nitty gritty of each pack, but I'm finally done!!! Wahoo!!

To celebrate, I'm having a sale in my TPT store on all of my word family packs!

 

 

 

You can also get all 5 packs for half the price in this bundle!

 

These packs include picture and word cards, picture sorts, puzzles, practice sheets, magnet letter activities, and differentiated write-the-room activities.

I just added an interactive journal section that I've LOVED using this year!

 

The kids write a word and draw a picture under each flap. On the left side of the page, they write a sentence for each word. My higher kids love this, and it really keeps them engaged.

 

I'm having a giveaway on my Facebook page, so check it out and you could win this word family bundle!

 

Off to bed now. It's supposed to be 13 degrees tonight, so this Georgia girl is going to go get under the covers. Brrrr!!!

Reindeer games!

It's the last week before Christmas!!! My survival strategy this week is to focus on REINDEER. I started with a schema chart on this AMAZING reindeer that my hubby made me.

Isn't he just so fat and cute?!

I read about schema charts {HERE} and loved the idea! The basic concept is that you have a place for students' schemas (what they think they know about a topic). As you research the topic, you add new learning. If something a child thought turns out to be wrong, you move it under misconceptions. This helps kids see that learning is an ever-evolving process of adding to and changing what we know. For reindeer, I added a special section of things only Santa's reindeer can do  =)  By the way, we worked on this chart all week, so it's definitely more than a 1 day kind of thing.

There aren't a lot of reindeer non-fiction books, but I did find some good websites. I compiled the websites into this powerpoint...feel free to use, change it, or ignore it!

Click {HERE} for the PPT

I also found this video. HILARIOUS!!!!!! If you do nothing else with this blog, WATCH THIS VIDEO!!!! You will NOT regret it!



To add a fiction-twist to this, we are reading one of my ALL-TIME favorite chapter books this week: Reindeer DO Wear Striped Underwear. The kids are hooked from the title, and I use this book to predict what's going to happen based on the chapter titles.

Another favorite fiction book about reindeer is Who'll Pull Santa's Sleigh Tonight? It's similar to Reindeer DO Wear Striped Underwear so we'll compare and contrast the 2 books.

Finally, I'm going to try my first directed drawing this week! I've been seeing this idea pop up on different blogs, and this one about reindeers is too perfect not to try! Isn't this guy a cutie?

Click {HERE} to learn more!

Oh, I can't forget the reindeer pokey!

You put your antlers in

You take you antlers out

You put your antlers in

And you shake them all about!

You do the reindeer pokey and you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about!

Repeat with hooves, red nose, fluffy tail (that always gets kids laughing), and reindeer body.

So those are our reindeer games and the key to my Christmas sanity!

Fa La La La Link Up: Holiday Freebies!

Teaching in December is NOT for the faint of heart! However, Primary Powers is making the week before the holidays a little easier with this FABULOUS freebie swap! Check it out if you need some activities to get you through the next week.

It's time to sequence!!! We've been reading holiday stories and putting them in order. Here are my favorite holiday books to sequence:

 

 

 

Here's our response to There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bell

 

And here's the TPT freebie for the above craft

 

I also made a Christmas freebie to help my kids with ten frames. It focuses on numbers in the teens.

Click {HERE} to grab this freebie

In un-Freebie news...

My awesome team has been keeping our kids focused by doing a unit on holidays around the world. Each teacher picked a country with a special holiday tradition. The kindergarten classes rotate to a different teacher each morning and learn about that country. They fill out an informational book and make a craft.


They made a suit case to take with them on their trip...

 

...and they fill it with these cute crafts that they make for each country!

 

Then they practice their map skills by finding the country on the map.

Here's the TPT pack we used
Not a freebie, but super cute!

 

 

And finally...

 

My kids won the canned food drive! We replenished local food banks AND won an ice-cream sundae party (Let's not get too nit-picky over which one of those reasons was the main motivator...). Yippee!!

 

They even made us a banner!

 

Happy Holidays!!!!  

A Christmas Conversation Linky

The Inspired Apple has a fun new linky all about Christmas traditions!! This is just the de-stresser I need while getting ready for Christmas. That, and the birthday cake milkshake that my wonderful hubby is bringing me from Zaxby's. Mmm...what a perfect combination for a perfect evening  =)