Elves, Ornaments, and Christmas Trees

Christmas has come and gone! It's hard to believe. It's also hard to believe that I've taken this long to write a new post! Anyway, here are the school-related activities that have kept me busy lately (besides trying to get report cards done - UGH!).

Snowball continued his adventures in our classroom, leaving clues to new Christmas words for us. Here are some pictures of his adventures in our classroom.

On our leveled books

 Using one of our listening centers

 One day he decided to swing on our word wall. Of course, that day another teacher came through, saw him, and touched him right in front of the kids! She doesn't know about the elf rules since she wasn't doing it in her class. I didn't think we'd be able to recover from that one! Then, I had an idea:

 Snowball left us a note the next day, saying everything was okay! I also managed to get out of writing a morning message that day. :) The kids all know I can't stand when capital letters are misused, so they knew I couldn't have written that messy message.

 As you can tell, I haven't been doing a great job of counting to the 100th day. I actually got to 13, but put it on all zeroes so it didn't look as bad for my observation (which went very well, by the way!).

 Snowball toilet papered our Christmas tree!

 On our dismissal sign

He decided to take a nap on top of the microwave. I guess the children wore him out! 

Unfortunately, I was so busy with other things I forgot to take the last picture of him. It took them a while to find him peeking out from behind one of our Daily 5 posters. 

After all of the clues, we found the missing candy canes! They were in the principal's office.

Every year I have the children make a gift for their parents. This year, I had to get creative since some of the children had been in my Kindergarten class, and already had the ornament with a hand print made into snowmen. My mom found this project, which seemed easy. It was fairly easy, until we got to the part where the children had to place the sticks on the tagboard, and mark where they would be glued. For the most part, they came out cute.

Of course, I had to do the "Which Part Did You Eat First" gingerbread graph. I use Little Debbie gingerbread cookies for this.

After we made the graph, and the children made their own, we had a discussion as to why most people ate the head first (thanks to a coworker who gave me that idea). They came up with answers such as more icing, it sticks out more, and it's bigger.

For our final celebration, we made edible Christmas trees! They were pretty easy to make. First, we spread white frosting on the plate to hold it in place (and to look like snow). Then, they stirred green food coloring into more white frosting to spread on a sugar cone. This made the tree. After the trees were covered in green frosting, they could put M&Ms, gumdrops (which were the spicy ones, and all of the kids ended up spitting them out in the garbage! LOL! It was a funny sight!), and sprinkles to decorate the trees. To finish them, they were given tubes of gel frosting to add garland to the trees. They had lots of fun doing this, although some did get carried away with the decorating. I put plastic dollar store tablecloths on the tables first for easy cleanup. It's definitely an activity I would do again.

Now that I'm caught up on things, I can get to making new activities for TPT and trying to get that giveaway together. Rafflecopter is a little more complicated than I thought it would be! 

Feel free to leave comments!

Snowball the Elf, Real Reindeer, and a Gift From Flat Stanley

Snowball the Elf arrived in our room on Monday! He decided to hang out on the Christmas tree and brought his first clue to the Case of the Missing Candy Cane Mystery. The clues came from an activity pack by Anita Goodwin.

 

 Clue #1

The children's first time seeing Snowflake.

The letters were hidden under the children's chairs that day. The letters spelled, "reindeer." Some of the letters are green, some are red. After we find all of the clues, the children are supposed to take the red letters and unscramble them to find the name of the place where the candy canes are hidden.

On the second day, Snowflake wanted a softer place to settle for the day.

 He decided to get into our class bucket of pom poms, which the class earns when everyone is making good choices. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to take a picture before the children came. When they saw he had "spilled" some of the pom poms, they decided to put them back in the bucket. So, I had to stage these pom poms to make the picture look better. :)

Clue #2 - The letters were hidden on the playground, and spelled "lights."

Today, Snowflake decided to do some reading in our library center.

 Soon after the children came in, one of my "little darlings" decided that moving the book was a good way to move Snowflake without touching him. He ended up laying on the book for the entire day.

Clue #3 - The letters were hidden in the library, and spelled "ornaments." It took them a while to unscramble that word! :)

Keep checking back for periodic updates on Snowflake!

Now for the further adventures of Flat Stanley!

Thanks to Mary-Jo (my friend since 7th Grade) and her family, here is Flat Stanley in Connecticut. Not only did he get to see real reindeer, but he got to see snow! I miss snow! We don't get much of that here in Florida!

Today I got to do one of those last minute lessons that turn out to be really interesting! I went up to the office during lunch time, and found I had a package. I had no idea what it was, but the box said, "Byrd's Cookies." I thought it might be something from one of our Flat Stanley recipients. I got back to my room, opened the package, and found that it contained a tin of cookies. I was excited about sharing this with the class, and went to get them in the cafeteria. 

When we came back, I suddenly had an idea! We usually do Math after lunch, but I figured it was okay to switch things up a little bit. I quickly went over to the box, which the children couldn't see, closed it up, covered the words with paper, and brought it over to the carpet to show the children. I told them they were going to write about what could be in the box. After holding and shaking the box, they had to think of 3 things it could be, and tell why they thought that. The children were very excited about this, and we even managed to extend this into practice for looking up words in the dictionary.

The "mystery box" with the words covered

 Working hard on their writing!

Still writing!

After writing, we shared our ideas with the class. Most of them were thinking of items like Christmas ornaments, lights, gingerbread, books, etc. One child even said she thought the box contained cookies from Flat Stanley! Afterward, I opened the box and showed them the styrofoam peanuts. Some of them seemed excited about that, but some were disappointed. Then, I pulled out the cookie tin, and read the note attached to it. The cookies were from a student's grandmother, who signed the card from the child and Flat Stanley. They were so excited! Then, I opened the tin...

I was shocked to see a tiny ant crawl across the tissue paper. When I lifted a pack of the cookies, there were more ants underneath. YUCK! You can't see them in the picture since most of them are under the cookies, and thankfully they seemed to stay there. Even though the cookies were wrapped in plastic, I didn't want to take any chances by giving them to the children. I apologized to them, and explained to them why I had to throw the cookies away. They seemed to take it okay, but I still felt bad. I think I felt worse about it than they did! So, I told them I would buy some cookies for us to have tomorrow. They liked that idea! 

Overall, it was a great last-minute lesson despite the ants. I just love those lessons that just seem to flow so naturally!

As always, feel free to comment below! I love to hear from my readers!

Making my (Wish) List and Checking it Twice

I'm sure many of you are making your wish lists for the big TPT sale tomorrow! I thought I'd share some of the items on my wish list with you. Since it's my first year in 2nd Grade I don't have many holiday activities for December. I even kept my Christmas folder out of storage because I thought for sure most of it would  easily transfer to 2nd. HA! I was completely wrong! I should have just put that folder in storage with the rest of my K stuff. Anyway, that is why I have chosen so many holiday items.

Since I plan to do Elf on a Shelf with my class this year, it is only fitting that I get an age-appropriate unit for it. This one is by Sunny Days. She has included activities suitable for grades K-5.

This next activity pack comes from Across the Hall in 2nd Grade. It's a Secret Santa classroom community building activity. Each child randomly chooses another child and writes notes to them daily. At the end, they try to guess who their Secret Santa is. It sounds like so much fun! This is for grades 1-5.

 This one is by Mr. Hughes. Students color by the code according to the part of speech (nouns and verbs) to make a mystery Christmas picture. My class really enjoys this kind of activity! Mr. Hughes says it's for grades 3-7, but I think 2nd graders could do it based on the description.

'Tis the Season for Holiday Math Centers is another product from Across the Hall in 2nd Grade. She has several different types of adorable math centers aligned with the Common Core. It's for grades 1-3.

This unit isn't on my wish list. I actually won it in a contest held by Melissa Machan of First Grade Smiles. Thanks, Melissa! I can't wait to try it! This is for grades K-3.


I'm really looking forward to working on Christmas activities with my class! Be sure to keep checking back for updates on the Elf on a Shelf, other Christmas activities, and the continuing adventures of Flat Stanley. I'm sure a few of them returned over Thanksgiving Break!

Feel free to comment below and share any fantastic items on your wish list!

 Thanks to Ashley Hughes for creating and sharing this button!

Wow! I'm honored to say that one of my free products was chosen to be featured on The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs! I just found this out tonight, so it was a nice way to end my evening!

Thank you to Erin at Tales from Room 112 for starting this linky!

The End of My Writer's Block!

Hi everyone! This will be a short post. I just wanted to share that I am no longer blocked from ideas for TPT! After posting my Shelf Elf Clip Art I wasn't pressuring myself to come up with a new activity before the sale. Suddenly the new idea occurred to me, and it came together easily!

My class has been working on comparing 3 and 4 digit numbers using greater than or less than. So, I decided to make an activity where they would choose 2 or 3 random 3 digit numbers (4 digit might be coming soon!), and put them in order from least to greatest or greatest to least. I included 2 recording sheets - one for comparing 2 numbers and one for comparing 3 numbers.

You can find it here if you're interested! Remember TPT is having a HUGE Cyber Monday and Bonus Tuesday Sale! You'll get 20% off any item in my store, and TPT will take another 10% off of that with promo code CMT12.

Enjoy the rest of your time off! It's back to school for me on Monday!

Thanksgiving, Elves, and Two Sales!

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone! I will be spending the day with my very small family. There are only 4 of us (5 with my brother, but he only comes at Christmas), and we see each other everyday. Sometimes I think it might be fun to have relatives and more relatives visit for the holidays, but then again it might be too overwhelming. We will be going out for Thanksgiving this year. I don't think we've ever done that. I'm kind of excited about it!

I plan to do the Elf on a Shelf with my class this year. I got the kit for free I might as well use it! I think it will be fun anyway. I've only done it at home with my son, but now I'm wondering why I never did it with my Kindergarteners. If any of you do the Elf on a Shelf in your classroom, feel free to share your ideas!

Speaking of elves, I tried so hard to think of a product to create for Christmas, but I seemed to get writer's block. Then, I suddenly felt the urge to draw some Christmas items.

TA-DA! I drew them, scanned them, then cleaned them up and colored them using PSP. Now I have my newest product! I included black line and color images for use in a variety of Christmas projects. Click here if you'd like to check them out!

Now for some fantastic news! I am participating in TPT's Cyber Monday + Bonus Tuesday Sale!

On Monday, November 26 and Tuesday, November 27, I will be offering 20% off all of the items in my store. If you enter the promo code CMT12 at the checkout, TPT will take another 10% off of that! Many other TPT sellers will be participating as well, so start adding items to your wish list! Simply click the link above to start browsing!

Also, on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I will be participating in the Teacher's Notebook 3-Day Sale! I will be offering 25% off all of the items in my Teacher's Notebook store (sorry, the elf clip art cannot be posted on TN without a special account)! Then, TN will take another 10% off of your entire purchase! Click the link below to check out my TN store!

Once again, I wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving! Feel free to leave comments below!