Christmas Time Chaos Plus A Letter of Invitation

WHOA, the past week has been crazy busy!  I only expect it to get even more chaotic leading up to Christmas Break.  My class has been rehearsing for their Christmas musical everyday as mentioned in the past post.  This week we rehearsed everyday and have 4 performances this week, two on Thursday and two on Friday.  Try fitting in Core Curriculum with this going on and you have one EXHAUSTED teacher.  Though I have to boast that my students are singing, dancing, and memorizing their lines very well.  I can't wait to share the pictures with you next weekend.  Our fabulous art teacher created the backdrops out of foam insulation and they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Here are the letters of invitations that my students wrote to invite their families to the show.  We turned them into presents by gluing the bow on top and designing the construction paper using oil pastels.  Oooooh I love me some oil pastels!  (side note: I have the bow template to share, but left it on my desktop at school.  I'll post it Monday if you would like to use it)

I'm taking my daughter to Disney On Ice TODAY!  She loves everything Disney.  I can't wait to see the joy and excitement on her face!  Happy Sunday Friends!

I {Heart} December

December is HERE!  

There are too many reasons to name why I love this month sooooo much!  My classroom is gearing up for the holiday season.  We've been busy with phonics, phonics, and more phonics.  Afterall, it is the basis for reading and well the kids love hands-on phonics activities.  I created this freebie for you to use as well to get the kids focused on word work while still enjoying holiday activities.  Click on the pic to get your word work freebie.

My students are preparing for a musical that they will be performing next week.  The music is very energetic and uplifting that I find myself singing the songs in the shower.  I just can't get them out of my head.  

Oh and....Our Donor's Choose Project was fully funded this weekend!  

What a great Christmas present to my class!!!  I can't wait to tell the kids tomorrow.

Happy December to all of you!

After Thanksgiving Sale

I don't know about you guys, but I am one T.I.R.E.D teacher.  Between eating all the delicious food and countless hours of shopping, I am exhausted.  But I am very thankful that I had these days off to enjoy with my friends and family.  Plus, I'm getting caught up on some much needed house work.  Ha!

I'm having an after Thanksgiving sale in both of my shops.  The Teacher's Notebook Sale started today and will run through Monday.  No code needed!

My shop will be on sale at Teacher's Pay Teachers beginning on Monday and ending on Wednesday.  Enter code CMT12 at checkout.

{Thanks so much to The 3AM Teacher for creating this cute button!}

Happy Holidays Friends!  

Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving Break. 

 

Teacher's Notebook & Turkey Ideas

Guess who made the Teacher's Notebook Newsletter???  

Yep, this teacher.  

I was so thrilled when I opened my email to find my shop as a featured shop.  It is such an honor to be featured and I am very blessed to be able to help other teachers.

This is the beginning of some much needed sunshine in my life.

 I just know it is! <3

Yesterday, we had students from the middle school, which is across the street, come to the 2nd grade classes.  They read and did two activities with the kids.  I could tell the middle school kids were nervous, but they did an outstanding job.

The kids made these "Missing Piece" faces from the book by Shel Silverstein.

Then, they created hand and foot print turkeys.  The kids kept saying the feet looked like potatoes.  Ha!

I wanted to share some fun ideas that I borrowed from Amy Lemons to prepare my students for Thanksgiving.  If you haven't heard of her, go check out her amazing ideas.  I borrow her ideas all of the time to help reinforce skills in my class.  My students created these darling bowls of mashed potatoes using her thanksgiving pack.  The kids listed 3 things they love about Thanksgiving.

And last, meet our "I'm Thankful for Turkey".  Isn't he just the sweetest?  I made him myself and the kids write things they were thankful for on the feathers.  

Have a blessed Thanksgiving with your loved ones.

A Little Bit of Family Time

My free time has been nonexistent the past 2 weeks.  As you all know, my husband just came home from his deployment last Saturday.  He was gone 6 long months!!!  We are so very blessed to have him back with us.

We wanted to have some much needed family time, so this weekend we took my daughter to a really fun farm.  Dean's Farm is located in Wilson, NC and there is soooo much for little ones to do.  My daughter picked a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch, fed animals at the little animal petting area, rode a bumpy hayride, and of course played on the playground.  She had too much fun.  It was a kicking and screaming fit to get her to leave.

To finish up our sweet reunion, dad and I are about to head to the new Olive Garden for the family and friends event tonight.  Geez, I am hungry just thinking about the food.

Real quick, I wanted to share a simple printable for your students to complete for Halloween.  My students did this last week.  It was great to see them check over their answers.  It challenged them a bit with adding 3 numbers together.  Click on the picture to get it for free.

Have a wonderful weekend with your loved ones!

Easy as P-I-E

Woohoo!  Blogging 2 days in a row!  Trying to squeeze in all of the things we have been doing.  I always try to take pictures, but things tend to come up and I lose my train of thought.  I will get better at updating this more frequently.  The rush of a new school year is finally settling down (I hope!).

My students created these cute PIE plates to remember P-I-E (persuade, inform, entertain).  I had different books that the students looked through and then they had to decide the purpose of the book.  Persuade seemed a bit confusing for them.  I had the bright idea since it was Chuck-E-Cheese night for our school to have the students write a quick note in their journals to persuade their parents that they really needed to go to Chuck-E-Cheese.  And.it.worked!  Now, they completely understand persuasive writing, at least for now.  We will have to revisit this again later, pretty sure.

I don't have a template for these.  My students did these all by hand using paper plates, crayons, and markers.  It was Pinterest inspired by this {PIN}.  I know it is so much cuter, but I was limited on time.  Hopefully, I'll try the Pinterest one in the future.

Off to finish laundry...Hubby will be home from his deployment next weekend, so I gotta get this place ready for his return!

The Battle of Frogs vs. Toads

We've been reading frog books all week and I am all "frogged" out!  Our basal story this week was "Days with Frog and Toad".  I wanted to bring in some other fiction and nonfiction stories to help us compare and contrast frogs and toads since it is not such an easy concept to understand.  They really liked buddy reading the stories together is discussing all things frog.

We watched a short clip from www.DiscoveryEducation.com that gave a visual and auditory representation of the differences and similarities between frogs and toads.  I would put the link up here, but you have to have a membership to access it.  I highly recommend checking out DiscoveryEducation.com for many subject areas.  It is A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Next, we made a T-Chart/Anchor Chart about things we learned.  It is similar to the one found {HERE}.  I love the virtual vine as well!

Students were given a Thinking Map (Double Bubble) Template to compare and contrast frogs and toads using the information from our anchor chart.  You can pick up the template we used for free.  Click on the pic!

I had the students pick which one was their favorite, a frog or a toad.  They had to write a sentence that told which amphibian was their favorite and write at least 3 sentences explaining why by inclduing facts that they learned throughout our study.  Some students are just learning how to write a complete sentence and when to use capital letters and punctuation.  The student work below is an example of a student who is in the developmental stage of writing.

This picture is just too cute for words!

That's it for today.  Enjoy your weekend.  It will be Monday before we know it!