Last Day before Winter Break!!!  So totally excited to have 2 weeks to totally kick back.  Even though I'm sure I'll be spending some time working on ELA  stuff for next year.  Much more fun to do that in pajamas with no make-up on!

Today we had an Ugly Sweater Day for the teachers.  I know,  that seems redundant :)  But I figured out why teachers wear ugly seasonal sweaters....little kids LOVE them!!  I got more compliments on my Christmas bulb blinking earrings than on anything I've worn all year.  And one of them was broken!  It was a fun day.  I love occasions like that, that bring the whole staff together for a laugh.

I'm attaching photos of a bulletin board I did for December.  I got the idea from this gingerbread house activity I purchased from Primary World on TPT.  My kiddos loved it and I thought it turned out really cute.  For the gingerbread house in the center, I just traced one projected onto butcher paper.  The only bummer is that it was too big for the laminator, I don't think it will survive the take-down :(

Just a little tip on buying student gifts.  I finally wised up and bought them in August when school supplies are dirt cheap.  I gave them crayons, glue, and a glue stick.  All-in-all less than $1.00 each when bought in August.  Stores should totally do back-to-school pricing again in Dec. or Jan.  They would clean up.  All that stuff needs to be replenished at some point during the year.   Plus, my kiddos were totes grateful :)  Such sweeties!




That is all for now!  Have a great Christmas!

Kristi

I'm really on a roll now! 

One week closer to winter break!  Ahhhh!  My children have no school tomorrow for a teacher institute, so I decided to take the day off.  I am throwing a Christmas Party for the 2 of them and their friends.  I'll be entertaining about 15 8-10 year old boys for a couple of hours.  I have lots of things planned, but we will see how it goes.   I used to volunteer to be the party mom for my kids' classes, but then I realized I hate taking a day off from working with kids, to work with a different group of kids.  But here I go again :)  My kids are really looking forward to it, so hopefully it will be fun.

I'm posting this free little reader I made last year to go along with the story, Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree.  Super cute story, I did it with firsties last year, but I think it would be fine and dandy for kinders or 2nd as well.  What the heck, it's free!  I hope your kiddies enjoy it.  Here is a link to the book on Amazon.  141 Reviewers can't be wrong!!



:)

Kristi

Blog #2...not too shabby! 
 
We are working on creating a unit on weather, storms and seasons for second grade.  It is a ton of work, but also super exciting.  I spend a lot of time looking for materials to use, which means lots of time on 2 of my fave websites: amazon and teacherspayteachers :)
 
I found this book, The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino.  It is a great non-fiction read about how snowflakes are formed.  It has great pictures and just the right amount of words.  Its tough to read non-fiction books aloud when they are super long.  I see the eyes of my kiddos glazing over.  This one is very good and I learned a lot of new info too!
 
My only boo-hoo is that I don't know if I will get to do this with my kiddos since we will be in the midst of language proficiency testing :(  BOO!!  At any rate, I thought it was pretty cool.
 
Check it out here
 

   

 

 

Thanks a bunch for stopping by :)

 

Kristi

My first post on this blog :)

In order to get the ball rolling on this blog, I'm going to share something easy I worked on this week.

SECRET SANTAS!  I'm on the social/morale committee in my building and love creating fun little things to brighten someone's day in the building.  Teachers here (just like everywhere) are overworked and feeling the pain of implementing CCSS (is that a 4 letter word yet?!).

Anyways, I used to think of Secret Santas as just one more thing to do during an already crazy month.  Plus one year I drew the name of the only male participant who listed his hobbies as wordworking...wtf do you do with that?  I vowed I wouldn't ever do SS again, but got dragged back in when I started in a new building.  I didn't want to seem like a Scrooge.

This year we made a little survey for participants to fill out.  This way the Secret Santa had a few hints about their pick.  You can pick it up for free at my tpt store .

I also made this cute little packaging, which was inspired by something my PIC (partner in crime) found on Pinterest.  I don't have the original link, please let me know if you know who originated this little cutie.  Little side note, I numbered each participant on a sheet of paper, and wrote their number very tiny on the outside of their folded survey.  That way I could make sure no one picked themselves before they 'unwrapped' their package :)  It was a hit!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  Enjoy!!