Elf on the Shelf Has Arrived!

Omiword! That tiny lil elf sure does cause a ruckus in the classroom! The kiddos were really excited but....my oh my did that inspire some awesome writing! I made these cute little journals for the students to keep track of our elf activity for the next couple weeks.

If you would like to download a FREEBIE copy of My Elf on the Shelf Journal, just click {here} or on the pic above. Feel free to PIN and share a lil love! I can't wait to see where our little elf friend is tomorrow! Happy elf-hunting!

FLAT GINGY Craftivity!

You've heard of Flat Stanley and now it's time to introduce his holiday cousin...."Flat Gingy"! Well, Flat Gingy is nothing like his big brother, the Gingerbread Boy. Instead of running away, he would love nothing more than to spend some time with the students' families. I just can't wait to make these cutie patootie gingerbread buddies next week! I did this take-home project several years ago with my PreK class & I was amazed how excited the kiddos {& their families} were about it! Those gingerbread buddies went everywhere with the families & they sent back some really great pictures!!!


Flat Gingy making caramel popcorn!

This was so much fun that I decided to redo this lil activity packet and have included a "Flat Gingy" book to read to the students before they take home their gingerbread buddy. If you would like to check it out, just click on the pic below!

 

 

 

Gingerbread Man Data Collection FREEBIE!

Ooohhhh!!! Run, run, run as fast as you can, so we can catch & eat that gingerbread man! Oh, I know how much excitement is in the air in anticipation of our holiday break (& the kiddos are pretty excited about it too!) Ok, lets be honest-we are all WAY past counting down the days left until break...who else is secretly counting down the school HOURS that we have left?!??? Be honest. lol  Well, we have 21 school hours left...tick..tick..  (You know you're doing it too!!!) Honestly, I love LOVE the students' excitement level this time of year & I just have to work super-duper extra hard to channel all that energy during these next few days. My firsties really enjoy the many different versions of The Gingerbread Man. And there are soooo many different versions...Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Baby, Gingerbread Friends, Gingerbread Pirate & the list goes on and on. And have you seen the newest version? The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers! How fun does that sound!?! Our gingerbread data collection/graphing activity is an all-time fav-or-ite! How could it not be?...you get to eat a cookie!!! (Snacks become very important to me the students during these last few school days!) I'm sure this is something that many of you already do, but I figured that I'd share anyway. I've also had oodles of requests for more data collection sheets, so here ya go!

Just click the pic for your data collection FREEBIE!

If you download my lil data collection freebie, just leave me a shout-out to let me know what you think (or just to give a big "Holiday Hey!") Also, if you are still looking for a few last minute holiday activities, I've put all my Christmas stuff on SALE in my lil TpT shop & Teachers Notebook shop from now thru Monday, December 19th! Be sure to check out my "Holly Jolly Elves"-its been a best-seller! Thanks everyone-I really appreciate all of your great feedback!!!

Click the pic to check out the sale on all of my holiday stuff!

Enjoy the last few school hours of 2011 (tick....tick...tick...!!!)

HELP WANTED! Holiday Writing Activity Freebie

Santa needs help! You know how busy it must be at the North Pole this time of year-so... Santa is now accepting applications for some additional holiday help! Well, my lil first grade elves were just dyin' to let Santa know why this is the job for them! Just check out this...

I just love her 1st sentence! Who doesn't love making dollars and cents!?! Too cute! My friend Danielle passed along a version of this activity that she was doing with her 3rd graders. I just reworked it a bit (just to make it a lil bit easier for my firsties) and added a little holiday picture. Just so happened, we had a little visit from Santa today so I was able to snap a quick pic of each of my kiddos with him! (Worked out pretty good!) We are really working on writing good sentences so after filling out the top part of the application, they had to write 3 good sentences. (A "Good Sentence" must have capital letter, word spaces, punctuation AND make sense! I think I repeat this about a bazillion times everyday! lol) Well, they turned out so stinkin' cute that I decided to hang them in the hallway for all to see! Also, made a cute lil "Help Wanted" Ad (sign) to hang up with them.

If you would like a copy of this lil holiday writing activity FREEBIE, just leave me a lil holiday shout-out & then click HERE or on the top pic!
Hope your kiddos love it too!

Rockin' Reindeer Fun! & a Countdown Sale!

Oh wow-sie, wow! I can't believe that we only have 12 more school days before Christmas break! Ahhhh-oooooo-ahhh!! (That was me screaming with excited just like that Target woman did when she saw the Black Friday sales flyer!!!!) By the way, I just love those Target ads-what a HOOT that woman is! There is just a extra boost of excitement in the air this time of year so...our job is to figure out how to harness that excitement & keep our kiddos engaged for these next couple of crazy weeks! Well, I kind of ran with a teachable moment this week when the topic of Santa's reindeer came up. It began with two of the students discussing reindeer antlers ("Only boy reindeer have them! Na-uh girls can have 'em too!") Can't you just hear this arguement discussion? Well, that "discussion" drew the attention of my entire class! So much for my Reindeer Fact Families activity! lol The kiddos were so interested in these animals that I went to our library to find a non-fiction book on reindeer-no luck. So, that night I decided to write my own non-fiction book about reindeer. One of our school goals is to incorporate more non-fiction reading and what better animal to learn about in December than reindeer!?! Here's a look at my lil non-fiction book.


I printed the book (& of course, added some cutie-patootie ribbon!) but I actually put it up on the Smartboard when I read it to my firsties. OMGoodness! They soooo loved learning about real reindeer. Check out our chart... (see if you can find our fact that only applies to Santa's reindeer!)

I decided to package up this book along with some of my other reindeer/holiday activities in my "Rockin' Reindeer Fun" math & literacy unit. I feel bad since I did not have this ready to go for the cyber Monday sale...so I'm going to have a "Countdown to Christmas" sale. Everything in my TpT & Teachers Notebook shops is on sale through Tuesday (12/6).


Click on the pic to check out this unit!

A big thank you to Amy over at Krazy About Kiddos for giving me the Sunshine Award! That was sooo sweet! Be sure to head on over to check out her blog-its awesome! And check back here this week for some freebies!
Let the countdown to Christmas begin!

Poppin' Into the Holiday Season! and some FREEBIES!

 That cute lil mouse is ready for some holiday adventure in "If You Take A Mouse To The Movies"! Don't you just LOVE these books by Laura Numerhoff??? Me too! This is a great book to use when teaching cause and effect or recalling details. I've done lots of activities in the past that go along with this story and I decided to package them up in this lil unit. Check it out!

Click the pic to check out this unit!

Anyone else excited about Cyber Monday? WoohOOOO! {I'm hoping to find some treasures!} Don't forget that TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS is offering an additional 10% off on 11/28 when you enter the code CMS28 at checkout! And everything in my TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS & TEACHERS NOTEBOOK shops is on sale thru Monday also!

I've just finished up a few more sentence scramblers for the holidays...so.....here's a lil holiday FREEBIE for ya! {If you grab this lil freebie be sure to leave me a shout-out! LOVE to hear from you!}

Click the pic for some HOLIDAY FREEBIES!

Jingle! Jingle! Jingle! I Can Hear Those SALE Bells Ring!!

Oh yeah! I LOVE the sound of a SALE!!! I confess, on Thanksgiving Day I secretly can't wait to finish up the dishes so I can sit down, browse all those black Friday sale flyers and plan my ATTACK! lol Just kidding about the attack thing, but I really do get some sort of crazy thrill with that whole black Friday sale madness. And I really had quite a method to the madness figured out UNTIL this year! What's up with starting these sales at midnight??? That just messed up my entire plan...oh WOWSIE did we ever experience some sCaRy shopping!!! I'll just say, better have on your game face when you enter WalMart at midnight! Wow! We decided to abort our mission and nap for a couple of hours then returned at 2am to an empty store-it was awesome--and, yep! I got the "Black Friday Treasures" that I set out for! Now, for the next big sale...I've already added oodles of goodies to my TpT & Teachers Notebook wishlist so I'm ready for CYBER MONDAY! Jingle, jingle, jingle!!! Let those SALE BELLS ring! EvErYtHiNg in my Teachers Pay Teachers and  Teachers Notebook shops will be on sale Saturday thru Monday! {On Monday Teachers Pay Teachers is also offering an extra Cyber Monday sale...just enter the code CMS28 at check out and receive an extra 10% off!}


Mix & Match patterns for a super-cute holiday writing display!

Check out these cutie-patootie elves!!! My kiddos had a great time making these and now these super-writers are ready to display their letters to Santa!
I also want to give a super big THANK YOU shout-out to Staci over at Going Nutty in First Grade! for sending me the Sunshine Award! You are awesome! Be sure to head on over and check out her blog!

Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving break! {Hope you're having some good luck finding your "Weekend Sale Treasures"!}