Merry Christmas 2014

Feeling very blessed this Christmas season.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

from our house to yours!

Christmas Math FREEBIE & Giveaway Winners

Hi everyone! I hope you are all surviving these few weeks just before the holidays. It's starting to get CrAzY in my classroom. It doesn't help that we have had 6 straight inside recess days. And it looks like the rest of the week will be inside as well. It didn't get above 15 degrees today. A little too cold for my firsties to go out to recess. Thank goodness for Adventure to Fitness and some fun dance videos to get all that energy out.

We did a great math activity today. It was suggested by my terrific first grade team.

Our district has been BIG on math tasks this year. Which are real world activities that the students have to solve on their own with very little help from me. They are pretty simple on a first grade level but lots of fun. Here is the one I did today- called Decorate the Trees. The task was: "You have a total of 10 ornaments to decorate each Christmas tree. You need to use 3 different colors. Make each tree different. Write a number sentence for each tree." I was very surprised at how well my class did. Even my struggling students were able to do at least 2 different trees. We have just introduced adding 3 or more numbers so this was a great activity to reinforce that concept as well as changing the groups of addends to get the same answer. We have also been working on combinations of 10 and doubles. I let them use tiles or cubes if they wanted to. Tomorrow I will increase the number of ornaments for my higher kids and let them try it again. 

Here is what the activity page looks like.

You can download a FREE copy HERE.

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my last post. I just LOVE this fun, amazing, friendly, teacher, blogging world. The Christmas Spirit just hit me BIG today and I just couldn't pick only 3 winners. So I sent my Christmas FUN packet to everyone who commented before midnight yesterday. I hope everyone got the packet. I hope your students enjoy the activities. Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog!!!

Christmas FUN Packet Giveaway!

Finally I got my Christmas FUN packet finished!!!

It's packed full of FUN learning for the holidays. If your class is like mine, they are going CrAzY right about now. I try to keep in my regular routine but sometimes that is hard to do with assemblies, Christmas programs, elf on the shelf, and snowstorms. I put this little packet together to help my kiddos "stay calm and work on"! I find if I can keep them busy in a fun way, I'll have less behavior problems. I try to do some reviewing and keep them engaged.

If you've purchased any of my packets before like: Find a Friend, Dot It, Scrambled Sentences, or Tic-Tac-Toe you'll find some of these kid favorites in this packet but with a Christmas twist.

You can check it out at my shops by clicking the side bar. Oh and it's on sale on TpT until Monday!

I'm feeling the Christmas spirit and would like to give 3 lucky followers this packet. Please comment before midnight  Monday and I'll use the 'ole random generator to pick 3 winners on Tuesday morning. Don't forget to leave me your email address.

Thanks for following and reading my blog!

Christmas Wishes!

Sending warm Christmas wishes from our house to yours!

Christmas in Review

I've been so busy that I haven't had much time to blog. Sorry. We got out of school on Wednesday and I've been going a 100 miles an hour trying to get everything done. But the parties are over, shopping done, presents all wrapped, baking and cooking finished (almost, what can be is finished) and choir practices over. Now it's time to sit back and enjoy the family and the season!
Here's a few pictures of our last week. I had a lot more but my camera was on the wrong setting so most of them are blurry. Dang! I hate when that happens.

Christmas party treat trees!

Grinch Day game.

 Getting messy!

 Christmas Party craft- pine cone ornaments

 Singing "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas" at the Jingle Jam!

 More treat trees.

 My darling granddaughter with her Grinch.

More Grinch!

I totally ENJOYED the last day of school!! We had a blast. It's fun to relax and be silly sometimes.

Look at the COOL Christmas present our class got a week before Christmas!

YES! It's a Smart Board!

Our principal had money to buy 4 boards for our school. So any teacher that wanted one had to write a grant for it telling how they would use it with a sample lesson plan. Low and behold- I got one. I'm still in shock. So guess what I'm doing on my holiday break? Yup, trying to learn how to work it. If any one has any great ideas or websites- please send them my way! My principal told us to use a TENNIS BALL! I thought he was crazy but it really works well. We use it to write with and to drag. The kids think it's great! 

I also posted a new packet on my shops. It's all about BLENDS.

You can check it out at

TpT or Teacher Notebook

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday break!

Good-Bye Ellie Elf

So sorry to have to say good-bye to our little Elf on the Shelf. My kiddos have been so excited each morning to find her. I've even had several students from last year coming in my room at lunch and after school wanting to see her. She was pretty well behaved most of the time because she knew my class this year couldn't handle very much mischief and she needed to show them what a 'good' elf does. Here's some more pictures.

 Ellie loves band aids!

 She's giving the Big Guy a hug.

 Here she made a bed in a basket out of tissues.

 One day she got into the candy jar but she shared with us and left us a note.

 Keeping watch by the math station board.

 Chillin' with some friends.

 Elves really have a sweet tooth. She got into the candy again.

 She LOVES to read especially 'Pete the Cat Saves Christmas'.

 Ellie's been the star of our class for the past month so it's only fitting she had a star attack.

Watching the class with Pete.

Tomorrow is her last day and she has brought us all a candy cane with a letter telling the kids good-bye and to continue to be good. We will miss her but I'm sure she'll be back next year for sure!

Christmas Gift Ideas

I've been getting little neighborhood, friends, and co-worker gifts put together and thought I'd share one of the ideas I do. My family loves the Peppermint Bark and White Chocolate Popcorn I make. So I take and make little treat bags of them and top them off with a little bag topper.

Both are VERY EASY and FAST to make as well as YUMMY!

I had a co-worker several years ago share the popcorn recipe with me. I've changed it a little over the years and added some red and green sprinkles. Thanks Jenna!

Click HERE to download the recipes.

The treat bag topper is printed on card stock, trimmed and folded. The graphic are from my good friend Nikki over on Melonheadz. The frames are from 'Surfin Through Second Grade' and fonts from 'Rowdy in Room 300.'

Click HERE to grab a copy of the treat bag topper.

We also put together our Christmas cards this week for our families. 

I take a photo of each one of my kiddos with a cute stuffed Christmas Moose I have. Then I get them developed at Costco for just 13 cents each. This make a really cheap but keepsake gift. I made a darling cover for the card from Scrappin Doodle's graphic.

I tape the photo inside and let the kids write a message and decorate it. 

They turned out pretty cute!

I hope everyone has a great last week before our long awaited and much needed break.

Christmas FREEBIE!

I have been without internet for most of the day. I HATE when that happens!! But it's up and running now. And I'm so glad. I wanted to get this post done before the day is over.

THANK YOU WONDERFUL 

FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS!!!

I put together a fun little Christmas sight word game for my kiddos and I want to share it with everyone to say THANKS for sticking with me. THANKS for reading my blog. THANKS for buying my packets. THANKS for all the great comments you give me. THANKS for helping me be a better teacher.

Click HERE to download the 6 page packet.

ENJOY!!!

Jolly Christmas to All!

Just want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is enjoying their time off. I know it's been wonderful to have a few days off before Christmas. I've been able to get a lot done plus relax with my hubby and family. But I've been working on some new things for January! Be sure to stop by after the holidays!

 From our house to yours- Merry Christmas!

GRINCH DAY!

Today was GRINCH DAY! And believe it or not it was a fun-filled day of learning. For the past several years, I've really felt like a 'grinch' because I quit doing Polar Express Day which I miss terribly. When I moved to my new school, the kindergarten started doing a really fancy one! It was hard to compete. Then our second grade does it too. I really felt like the kiddos were getting enough Polar Express. So I've searched for years trying to come up with something else. And BINGO! I found Deanna Jump's mini-unit on Mr. Grinch. You can check it out at TpT HERE. She teaches kindergarten so I had to bumped it up a bit.
My kids have been begging for a pajama day. So instead of dressing up in green, we did the whole pajama thing. That probably would have been enough because they were excited for that. We watched the cartoon version of the book and had caramel green apple suckers for a treat. Then we had a great discussion on Dr. Seuss' purpose for writing the story. [My district doesn't like a lot of fluff. So I had to tie everything into the curriculum of course.] After the movie and discussion we sang the cute little song from Deanna Jump's unit about Mr. Grinch.

Here's some pictures from today.

Next, we described the character MR. GRINCH on the sheet below. Click on the picture to grab a FREE copy.

After we had listed all the words that described him on the paper, we circled the bad things he STOPPED doing with red and the good things he STARTED doing with green.
Next, we played a math game with the GRINCH game board I frantically made last night. I needed something fast and easy. We used addition and subtraction flashcards with it but you could use spelling or vocabulary words too. Each player starts with 3 chips. The object of the game is to 'give back' your chips by landing on a heart, Max, or Cindy Lou. If you land on the Grinch, you have to take another chip. The winner is the person who gets rid of all his chips first. They had lots of fun playing the game and practiced math facts too. You can download a FREE copy of the game board by clicking on the picture.

Last, we made the cute little Grinch face from Deanna Jump's unit. On the mouth the firsties wrote and drew how they would get the Grinch to grin. They had some great ideas.
I was very pleased with how the day went and glad I finally found a fun, learning, Christmas activity to take the place of Polar Express. I'll be on the look out for ideas to add, so if any one has any PLEASE send them my way.
Oh, and just a reminder- My GIVE AWAY ENDS TOMORROW NIGHT (WEDNESDAY) AT MIDNIGHT UTAH TIME. So if you aren't already a follower and commented you need to do so HERE.
You can enter a second time by linking my give away on your blog and commenting that you did so. Here's all the information again.

I'm excited to see who WINS!

I hope you have found something you can use!
Only 3 more day for me and then Christmas Break here I come. WaHoo!