It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Last night, as I was doing my nightly Pinteresting I came arcoss a "Snowflakes for Sandy Hook" pin. The students from Sandy Hook will be attending a new school when they return in January. The PTA is going to be creating a "Winter Wonderland" throughout the school and are asking schools around the country to make and send snowflakes. Check out the article here.  

This morning our kiddies got going on making and decorating snowflakes to send.  They turned out so cute!! We are sending a HUGE box full. :) 

Today was full of projects!

We did a "Santa's Stuck" writing.  This can be found in our Hopping Through the Holidays Pack. 

   Tomorrow our kids will climb aboard the Polar Express in their pjs. 

I transform the room into the train (thanks Beth Newingham for the idea)! 

As they walk into the classroom they are given a round trip ticket to the North Pole. Before boarding the train they are served a cup of hot chocolate and their ticket is clipped.  While enjoying their hot chocolate I read the story.  We then have a bunch of fun activities (all Polar Express related) to complete throughout the day.  We end the fun with the movie and a venn diagram to compare and contrast the book and movie! 

Merry Early Christmas!!

It's been a great first two months in the blogging world and starting up our Teachers Pay Teachers store, Sister Secrets.  We are so thankful to all of our followers and have decided to throw a sale to celebrate the holidays early.  Our whole store will be 20% starting tomorrow, December 19th through the 21st.  So, hop on over to our store to pick up that last-minute Christmas idea.

We're looking forward to Thursday when our kiddos will wear their PJs and we will have our annual, Polar Express Pajama Party.  You can grab the pack here.

Or...if you want a quick activity, Splat the cat is always a fan favorite!  This pack includes an adorable craftivity and a few activities that are sure to please your little elves. 

Another fun, quick activity is our Christmas Gift Inference Activity.  Our kids LOVED searching our rooms and using their inferring skills to decipher the clues.

Thanks for reading and enjoy these last few days before break.  I'm sure you're just as ready as we are! :)

As an added bonus, the first 2 people to comment below will get their choice of the activities above.  

Remembering...

We are blogging today with a heavy heart over the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.  I can tell you that we all gave our kids a little extra love today.  It sickens us to think about what might have been if it weren't for the courage and strength of the teachers in that school. We are proud to be in such a wonderful profession that comes together in times of need. 

Giveaways

Congrats to the Realistic Teacher on her 100+ followers.  We have contributed an item to her giveaway, so hop on over to sign up!

 

We also are donating our Friendly Letter Writing Pack to Totally Terrific Teaching's 100 Follower Giveaway.  Check it out.

Thanks to both of these fabulous bloggers for the chance to enter. Enjoy your Saturday!

Can December Get Any Crazier?!?

Hello all!  What a crazy few weeks!!  Last week we had our first set of parent-teacher conferences!  Not that I need to tell all of you this...but what an exhausting few days!  I love meeting with my parents...I tend to talk too much and run over time....but I do enjoy it!  However I feel like I should bring an air mattress and camp out at school!  I would probably get more rest!  Then of course the weekend was busy with everything that keeps us all "too busy" in our non-teacher lives!  Next, this week starts with a substitute on Monday for an RTI committe meeting!  Are you kidding me?!? The week after conferences AND two days before my first observation of the year?!?   Sounds nutty but I found the PERFECT way to make my life just a tiny bit easier.  I wanted to concentrate on planning and prepping for my observation and sub plans were the last thing I wanted to spend hours on.  So...I used one of our Sister Secrets Sub Packs from TPT.  What a LIFESAVER!!  It made planning for a substitute so much easier and guess what?  My class LOVED it!  They couldn't say enough about all of the fun things "the sub had them do."   I chose to do Moostache, which you can find here if you want to check it out too!  This pack comes complete with a whole day of activities to do after reading the story Moosetache.   I had them start by making a folder out of construction paper that they could keep all of their activities in!  The sub showed them the cover, had them write the title and author, and then illustrate it to match!  Then the sub was free to set her own pace for the day with activities for all areas of the curriculum.  Just a few things that they did were a story map, an adjective activity, math story problems, and an adorable activity called  "Moosetache Me!"  Here is a peek at how their folders turned out and some of what was inside when the day was over!

What do you think?  Turned out pretty cute I think and they learned so much from one story!!  Most importantly it gave me a little stress relief between two busy weeks!

If you like our Moosetache sub pack...check out Knuffle Bunny and Miss Nelson is Missing too!

And now for some rest so I can recharge for some Christmas shopping this weekend!  

TGIF....have a great weekend! :)

~Sister 1



Terrific, but Tiring Tuesday

Well..it's over.  My first observation of the year, that is.  :)  I am so glad...the last couple of years things have really changed up here in Michigan with the teacher evaluation process.  And even though I know that what I'm doing is wonderful (obviously or I wouldn't be sharing it with you...haha!), I am always extra stressed on the day of the observation. 

So fast forward to 9:25 A.M--My kids were just finishing up their morning journals and math games and I quickly gathered them on the carpet for "the talk."  You all know "the talk." "The principal is coming down this morning to check out our classroom. She really wants to see children who are behaving nicely...yadda yadda yadda."  BUT, I really got their attention by saying that if you are very well behaved you might even earn extra recess time.  Hey, some might call it bribery, but I call it "persuasive speaking." :)

9:30--We start our Christmas Making Inferences activity. This morning I prepped all of the bags and had them all set out around the room.  As the kids came in, it was so cute to hear them "inferring" to each other about what was in the gift bags.  I explain everything (in my extra nice teacher voice of course) and we get moving.  Here's a picture of what the bags looked like.



The kids LOVED it.  It was adorable to see them working together with a partner that I chose and being "Inferring Investigators."  They did a great job on reading and inferring what was in the gift bags.  We wrapped it up by going over our guesses and unwrapping the gifts.  So much fun and a whole lot of learning!

~Sister 2

PS: Good luck to Sister 1 on her observation tomorrow morning!

Holiday Cheer

Like Sister 2 said, Christmas is our favorite holiday! We have so many holiday craftivities underway that I thought I would pop in and share a few.

Last week we really focused on synonyms and antonyms.  We used our Scholastic Children's Thesaurus (a MUST have!) to find synonyms for commonly used words. 

The kids were able to pick any word from the thesaurus to write on their stocking. Check out how cute they turned out!

Then we brainstormed a huge list of antonyms on the Smart Board (another MUST have!).  The students created antler antonyms.  I'll let you in on one of our little secrets... all you need are your hands and feet to create this darling craftivity. 

    

These two activities can be found in our Hopping Through the Holidays pack.

By the way... What do you think of our new look?!?  

23 days and a FREEBIE!!!

Thought that title would get your attention!  First, if you are like us, you are counting down the days until the biggest, most wonderful holiday!  Ok...ok...so let's be honest!  It's really more like a 19 day countdown...until our holiday break!   I don't know about all of you, but we are looking forward to it!  But before then there is much to do!  For us, a new math unit, landforms, projects, decorating, baking...oh wait...let's just stick to my school list!  We are keeping our kiddos quite busy with projects that tie into CCSS and get our classrooms into the holiday spirit!  If you have checked out our TPT store lately, you know we have uploaded many units and ideas that would be great to use this time of year. Today we uploaded a new FREEBIE!!  Yes everyone loves a good freebie!  It's a Christmas acrostic poem craftivity and you can get it here.  Print it out in a pinch and have a great poetry activity to hang up that your class will love...ours all did!

Happy December!! :)