Happy New Year and a HUGE Sale!

Happy New Year guys!

I hope that each of you have had a terrific Christmas and enjoyed some down time. My family was sick with the flu! Yuck! We are now all on the the mend and I am enjoying some time sipping coffee in front of a fire while I work on new TpT products. Don't you wish you were with me?

My family lives in a log home and I just love it during Christmas.

To celebrate a terrific year, I am throwing a HUGE sale in my store. Everything is 50% off...well more like 55%. :-) Yep! I typed that correctly! 55% off! So go over and stock up on some great products for your classroom!

Be sure to check out my new winter class reader and emergent readers.

 

Blessings!

Christmas Crafts

I work with some really talented creative teachers on my hall. I think you will agree. These ladies are always so encouraging and willing to share their cute ideas! I love my coworkers!

I thought I would share a few of their cute Christmas crafts and maybe you can find an idea for your classroom next week!

Rip and Tear Santa

Our preschool teacher Katherine made these. Have students use fine motor skills to rip strips of paper for Santa's beard. Use a pencil to roll the paper so his beard will curl. His hat is a triangle. His eyes are small black circles. His nose is a red oval.

Reindeer Place Mats

Our art teacher Annette made these with my Kinders. Students cut strips of paper to make a red and green pattern frame. Use a star punch to decorate the page. Trace hands and cut out for reindeer antlers. Laminate for durability.

Paper Plate Christmas Trees

 

Here is another craft from my talented friend Katherine. She teaches preschool. I am making these next week in our Christmas Center Swap with my kinders. The tree is paper plates. Draw lines on paper plates and divide into sections. Allow students to color and cut. Use a hole punch for falling snow.

 

Sweet Treat Gingerbread Men and Women

 

 

This craft is from our second grade teacher and is a hall favorite. If the Lord ever leads me to another school, I am definitely taking this craft with me. She uses butcher paper for the ginger bread men. She uses pillow stuffing for the insides. Some of her gingerbread men have raisins for eyes. Those turn out cute too! She told me to take glue and mix it with a little water. The kids paint the glue on and then sprinkle with brown sugar. She uses this for her outside bulletin board. It says "Jesus is the Sweetest Name I Know." Love!!!

 

Shape Up Nativity

Annette our art teacher uses shapes to teach the kiddos to draw a nativity. Can you spot the shapes?

Snowman Shirts

 

 



Katherine makes t-shirts with her preschoolers every year! They always turn out sooo cute!

Glitter Nose Rudolph

 

This is another one of Katherine's cute crafts. I just love the glitter nose!

 

Glitter Pine Cone Christmas Trees

 

 

This tree comes from Annette. She shouted from the back of the room saying that the tree wasn't finished yet, when she saw me taking a picture! However, I thought it was cute and a neat idea as is!

 





Tell these ladies how cute their crafts are in the comments below. I will share your words of encouragement....I have got to get them to start blogging their cuteness! I can also try to answer any questions you have on how they completed the craft.

Game Time!

Who is up for a little game?

Directions:
1. Visit my store and see if you can find my favorite product right now.
2. Travel to my Facebook Fan Page.
3. Make sure you are Facebook Fan.
4. Comment on the above picture with what you think is my favorite product.

Winner will win a product of their choice. (Under $9.00) First person (or two or three) to guess wins! :-)

Friday Journals

Each Friday my kinders write in a journal entry about something they have learned during the week. The kinders take the journal home to mom and dad. The parents write back to their children and I read some of the letters back on Monday of the new week. The kids LOVE hearing what mom and dad have to say. It cracks me up when I hear them respond with "AWE!!" when they hear another child's letter from home.

At the beginning of the year we started with just letter sounds. Now we have moved to creating sentences with sight words they know. They are allowed to use a word bank that I keep in my classroom. They also use a letter chart to help them remember letter sounds. You can grab one for free here.

Here are some pictures from this week's entries. I am in love with them. I think their little drawings are precious and I just had to share!

 

This one cracks me up...The pictures are sweet, but notice that Mary, Joseph, and the Angel all have sad faces.

Facebook Frenzy Freebies

Ready to be introduced to some fabulous teachers with fabulous resources? I am involved in a facebook frenzy this weekend. Follow this frenzy map and it will take you to different facebook pages of some fabulously talented teachers with great Kindergarten resources.

Like their facebook page and click on the little penguin. It will take you to some awesome freebies. You can start with my page and it will take you to the other pages.

Don't worry, there is more than just Kindergarten resources. The starting point map for each grade level is here. You will need to download from Google docs and each thumbnail will be a link to the Facebook starting point.

Nativity

This week I introduced our Christmas around the world unit. We started in Brazil. We talked about the tradition in Brazil is to build a Presepio. So today we made a nativity scene. They turned out very cute and thought I would share. Directions listed below.

• I used nicer square scrapbook paper.
•  Paint right foot. I had them bend their knees and allow me to put the foot on paper.
•  Paint a X for the legs of the manger.
•  I traced and cut a star in contact paper. I placed the contact paper sticky side down and then painted over it with yellow. I then peeled up the star.
• I used jumbo sticks to make the manger.
• I used a blue wash cloth from dollar tree for the baby blanket.
• The straw also came from the dollar tree.
• I used manilla cardstock for the baby Jesus face.

If you want to check out what I use to teach this unit....


Here is the Christmas Around the World with Biblical Integration unit.

Here is the Nativity Reader.

Eddie the Mischievous Elf

Today we had some fun with Eddie the Mischievous Elf.

I started by reading this book to my kinders. My mother and I had fun writing this little reader together over Thanksgiving Break. My kids loved it and giggled at mischievous Eddie. I printed the book and placed it in a binder with sheet protectors for safe keeping.

After I read the book, I told my kiddos we were going to help Santa by fixing all the trouble that Eddie had caused.

First, they fixed the tags that Eddie messed up. We have been working on word families and I had them rearrange the word families to make words. They always love using scissors and glue. And it is great for fine motor skills.

Next, they helped line up the reindeer by putting the alphabet in order. I had them feed the alphabet reindeer onto a binder ring and a pipe cleaner.

Finally, I had them build sight words and CVC on playdough mats. I told them they were helping bake the cookies.

They are also working on a story about Eddie. Sorry, I couldn't get it to rotate. :-(

I am using these readers during my reading groups.

We are making Eddie for a fun craftivity.

We worked on this during Daily 5. We will continue to run these same centers throughout the week.

Check out the full version here. It is on sale, through tomorrow in the TpT black Friday sale.

 

 

I was asked to create a preschool edition as well. The preschool edition includes elf and reindeer letter cards. Santa alphabet and number play-dough mats. Eddie coloring pages.

 

 

 

 

 



I will close with these cute cars a parent made for a student's birthday! :-)