Christmas Shananigans

I love the Christmas season and celebrating with my students is one of my favorite things to do. So - here is a little of what we did during the month of December.

 

I decorated our reading corner - Dr. Seuss style. The tree has white lights, icicles and snowflakes on it.

 

We wrote letters to Santa and walked to Santa's mailbox to deliver it.

Apparently, Mel was on the naughty list therefore wasn't too excited about delivering her letter to Santa. :) I love that I teach in a small enough town that I can take the kids for a walk around town.

We discussed Christmas around the world and had crafts for them to do each day. This craft is from England. Paper lanterns that children place in their windows so St. Nicholas knows where to drop off the presents.

 We read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and the Grinch brought them green candy canes.

We also did an adjective activity in which the students chose a bunch of different adjectives to describe the Grinch.

This was a legend of the Spider that came from Germany. So we make sparkly web trees.

Our art mom came and make a hand wreath with the kids.

We made trees and on each circle they wrote a different way to say Merry Christmas in a different language. We made circles for Italian, English, Spanish, German and French

This was one of our gifts for their parents. Magnetic bookmarks. Very simple and easy to make.

This was another gift that we made. pinecone owls and clip onto the tree branch. They turned out super cute!

This was one of my gifts to them: white tic-tacs (snowman poop) They got a kick out of them!

The poem read:

I've heard you've been naughty

so here's the scoop

All you get for

Christmas

is

snowman poop!

And the Classroom Christmas party was a hit. We had donuts from Dan's Ferry Service (Thee best), and opened our gifts from our secret Santa's. It was a great way to celebrate together!

Merry Christmas!

Success Maker

So - at the end of the day (the last 45 min.) my students march to the elementary computer lab (hurray that we have one) and spend some time learning things at their level. The computer program called Success Maker enables the students to learn at their pace and at their academic level - which is amazing because no teacher can adequately do that when they are trying to teach ALL students at the same time. My students seem to enjoy it and they spend a little bit of time in Math and a little bit of time in Reading each day. Their progress is monitored and I am able to go in and see how they are doing at any given time. As a teacher I love that kind of data at my fingertips.

I'm sure you've heard your students talk about SuccessMaker. Here are a few photos of our escapades in the computer lab and what your children are doing.

Math

 

One of the fun aspects of this new math program is the activities that they have us do with our students. We were learning about polygons and the program suggested that we let them make some polygons on their own. They had a lot of fun making their polygons and I was able to get some pictures. Now - every time I get the camera out I have about half of my class follow me around wanting their picture taken - so that is why so many pictures exist about this particular math lesson. :) And I can't help myself because I have the cutest kids in my class!!!

 

A day late - but .... Merry Christmas!

First of all - Merry Christmas! My Christmas was amazing and special and I feel so blessed. As I reflected yesterday morning about my life and my many blessings I thought of your precious children. And in the wake of what happened in Connecticut I couldn't help but feel a special bond with your kiddos - and I miss them! They bring me so much joy! And I hope you know that I would gladly take a bullet for any one of them, any time, any day! I pray that never happens but know that my priority is always to protect your children.

On a different note:

My aspirations for this blog are always at it's peak in early August and on into early September. I stay on top of it and enjoy writing and posting about our classroom adventures. THEN.... comes the holiday season. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and my time and energy finds it's way into other things and other places and I lose track of the purpose of this blog. So sorry!!!

At this point in the year, after Christmas I find that I look forward to starting fresh. I'm looking forward to January and the push until Spring Break. This time of the year is always the KEY to unlocking our students potential. And I look forward to it.

I hope you are enjoying your break with your children. I eagerly await their smiling faces on January 2nd.

Please remember during this break from school that the most important thing to do with them is to read with them or have them read to you or a family member. I know it can be a challenge and as a parent of a 2nd grader I am fully aware of the strains on families during the holidays. I just ask that you do what you can, when you can! And inspire them daily! They are worth it!

And coming in the new year:

More amazing author studies: Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl ( my fav), and Kate D' Camillo

Science Fair - LOVE this! We get to do a lot of fun science experiments

New Reading Unit called "Look Again" and we discover the world of animal camouflage - so much fun!

Learning to use "Bridge to 10" strategy to learn math facts.

In the meantime I will recap and add a few more posts - Enjoy your holiday break!