New Year's Freebie

Hi everyone. Has anyone else had a sense of the "blahs" this week? I think it is related to all of the heart wrenching sadness in Sandy Hook. Did you see the information about making snowflakes to send to help decorate the school they are moving into? You can read about it here: http://www.ctpta.org/SANDY-HOOK-FUND.html 

Such a sweet and wonderful idea.

We are planning to make snowflakes in our classroom tomorrow. We are going to use coffee filters and spray them with silver glitter. 

Tomorrow is our last day of school before Christmas break. I have a couple of last minute things to do before the holiday, but we are pretty much ready. We have to put our gifts in the guestroom instead of under the tree because Lucy (our Westie) thinks they are all for her and will open every present!

I have a freebie for you tonight for New Year's . . .

Click here to download and print

In Memory

Prayers . . .

No words are adequate for today . . .

Merry Adjectives

We've been learning about nouns, verbs, and adjectives. I made cards with nouns, verbs, and adjectives written on them. I had the kids come up and draw one out of a bag. They had to read it and say if it was a noun, verb, or adjective. If it was an adjective they got to glue it on my giant Christmas light! After all the adjectives were glued I gave them the booklet. I let them choose adjectives from the chart to write on the blanks.  My favorite was "The hot Santa?"

You can get the word cards here.
More adjectives here.
The book is here.

Letter for Rudolph, Linky Party

Tammy from "Dots of Fun" had a great freebie giveaway this week. I had such a busy week, I missed out on grabbing most of the images, so I bought the set this morning. It was worth it to me to buy the set, even just for the bell! It reminds me of this bell which holds great sentimental value for me. My dad gave it to my mom when I was a teenager. My parents are both gone now, but when my son was a child, my mom gave it to us. We put it on our tree every year. It has always been Austie's job to place it on the tree, even now that he is 20 years old! I have it set aside for him to put on the tree when he gets home from college for Christmas next week!

Anyway, since I seem to have reindeer on the mind this morning (see previous post) ,

 I decided to make a template for my class to write to Rudolph, which always proves to be lots of fun!

Click here to download


I am linking up with Tammy for her Linky Party. pop on over to check it out!

Have a great day!

Reindeer Word Art

Happy Sunday! What do you have planned today? I couldn't sleep so I got up at 5:30. AM. On the Weekend! Blah!

We have 2 weeks until break. How about you? 

On the plus side I have gotten a few things accomplished already including ironing my clothes for the upcoming week and making some word art just for fun.

Here it is . . .in 3 colors. Made to fit an 8 X 10 frame.

Click here to download and print

Snowmen Fun, Blog Blinkies from Barb

I wanted to mention that a great blogger is doing a Freebie for Christmas.

 Barbara from GradeOnederful/Ruby Slipper Designs is giving away a darling new blog blinkie each day for a week.. Here is one that I grabbed. There are 4 available right now. She is so creative. . .Click on the blinkie to go to her blog.

Here is a freebie that you can grab from me that go with the "Snowmen at Night" series of books.

Happy Thursday

Click here to download and print

Symmetry and Santa

Happy Monday! Well, I guess Mondays aren't always happy, but we are on our way to Tuesday! We have been learning about Symmetry in Math and have recently completed 2 projects that utilized the concept. Here they are . . .

For the reindeer we used half a pattern to trace on a folded piece of paper.

For the bells we put drops of paint on one side of the paper and then folded in half and rubbed gently to spread the paint.

We also recently completed a Santa. Here it is . . .

I will post the pattern for you as soon as I remember to bring it home to scan! Hopefully tomorrow!

Have a restful evening!

Contractions Anchor Chart Freebie

Hi everyone! Gosh, tomorrow is Friday! Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Are you an "early" shopper or a "last minute" shopper? We try to finish our shopping early, but it's always fun to run out and look for that last minute gift or two.

We have been learning about contractions in class this week. I decided to make some anchor charts to use on a "Contraction Word Wall." 

Here is a picture. Click below to print them yourself.

Click here to download and print.

Christmas Freebies

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend! Well, actually it is almost over! I have had 4 whole days of enjoying family and relaxation. Time to try to drag myself back into the real world! 

How was your weekend? I hope you had a chance to slow down and take a breath . . .

Here are a couple of fun freebies as we get ready to head into December.

Click here to download and print

Click here to download and print

Christmas Clip Art by Laura Strickland at  My Cute Graphics. She has a supportive and generous Terms of Use policy for teachers!

Little Elf Craftivity Freebie {and Word Art!}

Hi everyone! Can you believe it is Thanksgiving week?! Do you have school this week? We had school today and will tomorrow, but are off after that. I hope you have fun plans for the holiday weekend. Are you planning to brave any Black Friday (or Thursday Night) Sales? I am glad that the couple of objects we are going for are actually offered Thursday night so that we don't have to get up so early! Yay!

I have a Little Elf Craftivity Freebie for you tonight as we gear up for December. . .

Click here to download

I also have some Christmas Word Art that you can print and frame for your house if you would like



. . .click HERE to print it from my other blog.

off to watch Dancing With The Stars :)

Class Emergency Kit

Ok, I have spent about a week thinking about this.

We were all pretty shook up by the fact that we were expected to keep our little ones safe with no power, the very real possibility of no lunch, and to keep them safe. I think we have all spent some time trying to decide what we could do beyond our typical "extra recess" strategy. On this last day of no power the weather had decided to turn nasty, so "extra recess" was out of the question especially since we had no heat and keeping them warm would be a disaster.

So, with my principals permission I decided to make a class emergency kit. I had no idea of what I should put in it, but after some dedicated time on google I discovered that in some schools having students provide items for an emergency kit was required! That won't be possible for me, so I am counting on my parents being willing to donate the supplies for their child and hoping that a few will be willing to help out my little ones who are unable to provide a kit for themselves.

This is what I came up with:

 

I am still trying to think of worthwhile activities that the kids can do while the power is out, especially in the winter when we can't open our doors for extra light. If you happen to have any marvelous ideas please let me know. Remembering that the activities need to be applicable for any time of the year (big challenge, I know).

When I get it put together, I will share some pictures. I know that I can visualize how I want things to look much easier when I can see how someone else has done it already.

Classroom Ear bud storage, Readers Theater Headband

Hi everyone! Happy Thursday! One week until Thanksgiving, WOW. Time does fly by. A while ago I shared an idea for crayon storage: 

Well, as you know, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention." I recently had to re purpose my shoe organizer because I needed a way to neatly store the children's ear buds that they use  for  "Listen to Reading".

This is what I did:

Each child is assigned a "classroom number" that we use for a lot of things. I put their classroom number on the ear buds and on a pocket in the shoe organizer. This keeps them all in a nice tidy place that is safe and easily accessible. 

I also have a freebie for you. I have a group of kids doing a little Thanksgiving Readers Theater next week to introduce Common Core RL 1.6. I made these cute badges that we are going to staple on a headband for each child in the play.

Click here to print

Writing 'Menu" Display

Hi gang! I mentioned in an earlier post that I had my eye on this from Lori Rosenberg

Well, I purchased it over the weekend, printed it and went straight out to my classroom on Saturday evening to set it up! This is a picture of my bulletin board

and a partial picture of my baskets underneath

I made number tags so that it would be easy for the kids to match up the item on the "writing Menu" with the basket that contains the appropriate writing template. I am introducing the menu items one at a item and showing how to match with the correct basket. So far, it has been a big hit! They love it!

Click here to print number cards

Click here to see it at Lori Rosenberg's TpT Store.

Hope you all had a good day!