December Crafts

It's been a while since my last post.  Time sure does fly!  I have spent my entire holiday break ill.  :(  I have finally decided to post the crafts that my students made during the month of December.  I know it's too late for anyone to make them this year, but you can pin this page and make them next year.

We started off the month by making these cute footprint trees.  I try to make something with footprints or handprints each month.  I think it's a good record of how much students grow during the year.

Then we started making ornaments out of cinnamon dough.  These ornaments smell great and take a few days to air dry.  We painted the cinnamon ornaments with glue and sprinkled them with glitter.  We also made reindeer ornaments out of craft sticks.  I gave each student a brown marker to color their craft sticks.

After all this ornament making, we made large swirly ornaments to hang in our classroom.  To make the swirls, fill a paper plate with shaving cream.  Add a few drops of paint.  Give students a craft stick to swirl the paint in the shaving cream and then press the cutout or shape onto the shaving cream and remove.  Scrap off the shaving cream and you have paint swirls left on the paper.

Last is a craft that my students made with the librarian.  I just thought they were cute and I ended up assisting with this during my planning.  I do that sometimes.  I go in early and end up helping.  I actually don't mind.

 

Now that 2012 is coming to an end, I have began thinking about my goals for 2013.  My number one goal is to get more organized at home.  It seems that I have one idea where things belong and my hubby as another idea.  We need to get on the same page and get with the program if we ever want to get ourselves organized.  My classroom could use a little more organizing too since I moved into a different room this year.  Let's just say I am the happiest ever teaching at my new school, but I do miss my old friends.

 

My number one school goal for 2013 is to focus more on writing.  I just don't feel like I am giving it my all when it comes to teaching students to write.  I will be looking for new ways to add in some writing where I can.  If you have any ideas, I would love to hear from you so leave me a comment and Happy New Year!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary School

Tuesday Tidbits

It's a new month and I am changing out my sensory tables.  Today, I scooped out all the beans and rice that I had in my sensory tables and I added fake snow to one.  This is the kind of snow that you buy for a Christmas village and it is sooo cheap.  Only $2.50 for a large bag at Wal-Mart.  Yes, I broke down after 6 months and went to Wal-Mart.  I only went because I couldn't find this stuff in the other stores nearby.  Here is what the empty package looks like if you want to go pick some up to use in your classroom.

 

So the photo is giving me fits.  Sorry it's sideways.  I bought three bags of this stuff to fill my sensory table.

 

I plan to add some holiday stuff in with the snow.  I'll have to take a pic and repost later.  I was in a hurry to get to an appointment after school so this is as far as I got today.

 

I have changed the center activities that my students are working on this week to fit in with the holiday season.  This first center is one of the freebies here on my blog.  It the Penguin Color Word Match.  Students match the color word to the color.  This can be played as a concentration type game or use them as an assessment to see which color words students recognize.  If you missed the post, here is the link.

 

Another center this week is a gingerbread word family sort.  This is from my Gingerbread Math and Literacy Centers packet.  You can get it in my TPT or TN store.

 



I also have my Ten Frames puzzles out this week for my students to practice ordering numbers.  It is also from my Gingerbread Math and Literacy Centers packet.

 

I have one last thing to share.  I bought a few things at the Dollar Tree recently.  The books are dry erase and allow students to practice writing words, letters, shapes, and numbers.  The cards are matching games.  One of the games makes a picture when you have the correct match.

 

 

Yeah, for some reason the pic will only upload upside down.  Well when I figure out how to fix that, I will.  I even flipped it on my computer, but it still shows up like this.  That's what I get for taking pics with my phone. :)  It's almost as bad as spell check.  Well, I hope I have given you some new ideas.  What kind of centers are you doing this week?

 

One last thing, Tips for Top Teachers is having a giveaway and this one's HOT!  Not only are they giving away lots of classroom teaching materials, but one lucky winner will win a Nook!  Check it out and enter yourself to win.

 

 

 

Santa Sight Words Game Freebie

I went shopping online this week and I bought a few things on Cyber Monday at Teachers Pay Teachers.  One of the things I bought this week was "It's Calendar Time!  Daily Calendar Book" by Growing Kinders.  You can purchase this item here.  I have been looking for a way to keep a few of my students more engaged during calendar time so I thought doing a calendar book would be a great solution to this.  I'll let you know how it goes as I plan to start this in December.

After reading Smedley's Smorgasboard post this week, I learned where he got his great hat projects from so I popped over to Teachers Notebook and bought "Alphabet Phonics Headbands" from The Moffatt Girls.  You can see it here.  We made the letter R headband today.  My students loved them!  I also purchased "Phonics Watches" from them and my students LOVED these!  I was a little skeptical about the watches at first, but I haven't seen my students this excited about anything in a while.  I even had to repair a few that got torn off.  They did not want these to fall of and they did the best coloring ever!  You can check them out here.

Ok, so a little shopping has inspired me to make a new freebie.  I just finished creating a sight word game for my students to play during reading groups.  I used 66 words from the first 100 Fry words list.  Many of these words are also in the Scott Foresman Reading Street units 1-3.  You can get your free copy here.  Enjoy!

What kind of activities do you have your students do during reading groups?  Which activities do they like doing the best?
 

December Planning and TPT Cyber Monday

I started planning out the month of December today.  There is so much that I want to do for the month.  My teammates are using the senses and the holidays as the themes for this month.  I want to add in Christmas Around the World and do their themes at the same time.  Who knows, they may want to do some of my stuff.  I'm new to my school this year if your wondering and I am loving kindergarten again.  Sometimes it seems we need to go on a little soul searching journey to figure out what we really want to do teach.  I tried out a few other grades and realized that I truly am a kindergarten teacher.

So for the month of December I am going to be teaching the following:

• Hanukkah
• Kwanzaa
• St. Lucia Day
• Las Posadas
• Christmas
• The Five Senses

I am going to be using my Gingerbread Math and Literacy Centers that you can get in my Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook store.  Tomorrow I am throwing a sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Everything is 20% off plus the additional percentage offered by TPT.  The last day for my Teachers Notebook sale is tomorrow.

I will also be using my Christmas Fun Literacy and Math Activities.  This item is also located in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook stores.  This packet has a great snowman glyph with a data collection tally sheet and a mini-book.  There is a fingerprint Christmas tree craft, a syllable sort step book, a letter writing form, an emergent reader written by me, and more.  I do want to say that the snowman glyph can be purchased separately.

 

I hope everyone had a great break!  Happy shopping on Cyber Monday!  I know my wishlist is full. ;)

 

I Survived the Day and a Sale!

I survived the day!  It was tough going to school today even though it was a half day for the students.  I kept thinking that I should be home getting things ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Anyway, Teachers Notebook is having a sale and I am throwing a sale to give everyone an even bigger discount so hop on over to the Teachers Notebook and check out my shop as well as others.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Rekenrek

I finally finished making rekenreks for my kinders to use during our number talks.  I started making them in September.  My husband cut a quarter inch thick board into 4" by 12" pieces.  It only took one big piece of wood to cut out 20 student rekenreks and one larger teacher rekenrek.  I have to finish up the larger teacher version.  I was worried about splinters even after sanding the sides down.  My solution.... pretty duct tape.  I had to buy one bag of red and one bag of white pony beads and some elastic cord.  They aren't perfect, but they will last a while and serve the intended purpose.  My son had fun playing with them and wanted one built to keep at home.

I would love to know/see how others have made rekenreks.  If you have made them, leave me a comment or the link to your blog so I can check them out.