Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Christmas, Christmas, and More Christmas!

 
So, we've been just as busy as the next classroom. Here are some of the projects going on in our room. My firsties are having a ball doing them.
We started a unit on reindeer and made these adorable reindeer. Quick question, how do you explain to these little ones who whole heartedly believe in Santa and Rudolph that reindeer don't really fly?  As we were filling in our schema chart many of them said they fly. I just went along with it. I'm not going to be the one to break their hearts and besides it is fun to believe they do fly.
 


I teach at a Catholic school so we also do religious projects. This has always been a favorite of mine. I found it from Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching. So easy to make and turns out great.
 

Today was Grinch day at school. The kids came in the Grinchiest (if that makes sense) clothes and we had many activities planned for the day. This year we made it easy. At 11:00 all the kids in the kindergarten through second grade classes rotated rooms every 10 minutes. Each teacher read a different Christmas story to the kids. They loved it. By the time they were on to the third room they were all guessing what book was next. I read the story Santa Lost His Ho, Ho, Ho!  Super cute book and the kids got to say the Ho, Ho, Ho part each time it came up. Way too cute! In the afternoon my class made these cute Grinches and then wrote what they would do to make him smile. My favorite was to take him to the circus. We also pinned the heart on the Grinch. Thank goodness we had gym today. It broke things up a little ( I really needed a break from all their Grinch excitement).
 

 
One of my favorite authors is Laura Numeroff. Who doesn't love her stories? After we read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies we made these adorable mice. I found this at First Grade Fever.
 

 
I always love looking at the cute bulletin boards around our school, Here are just a few of them.
 





 
Our class Advent wreaths.

 
Our class Grinch anchor chart (with a glimps of our Kindness elf hanging on the side)

 
Our class is working very hard on learning their math facts. This gumball math is a great incentive for them to learn them. Every time they pass their fact test they get a gumball sticker and for every 5  they get a gumball. If you are looking for this one I found it over at Fluttering Through First Grade.
That's it for now. Busy as ever. Tomorrow is our school Christmas program - another jammed packed day with rehearsals and then an all school performance and parents performance at night. Did I mention that we do after school fun classes for those who sign up? We do. I am doing a holiday baking class and an Elf Academy class. It's a lot of fun but also tiring. The kids love it so it's well worth doing. Now on to bed to do it all over again. But as all good teachers say "I wouldn't have it any other way!"