I think I can, I think I can...

I can't believe it's only Tuesday! My little sweeties have A LOT of Christmas cheer. They are so ready for Santa to come! I think tomorrow I may have to tell them about the candy cane phone in the office. It comes up from the floor and can only be used by teachers. It is a direct line to Santa. It has worked for years and you should see the look on their sweet little faces when I tell them about it!
Anyway, this week has been about crafting and goodies. I've been eating WAY too much. Every day, there are new things in the lounge that I just can't resist. Today it was chocolate-covered Oreos. Yum!
So when I went to the doctor after school and they weighed me, I looked away and asked them not to tell me. I'd rather not know at this point. Just let me enjoy my holiday and then I'll get down to business!

Here is a little project that we did today along with finishing parent gifts and cards. We got it all done!!

If you give a Gingerbread Man some jingle bells...

I have to go start my gifts for coworkers and parent volunteers. I'd love to know what others give their parent volunteers. I'm always looking for a new idea!

:) Andrea

Another craft?

Really? That's how I felt this week. It was one craft after another. Don't get me wrong, I like them, but they are so time-consuming! Today, we finished our gift to parents and started working on cards. Here is what we got done:

I found this idea somewhere out in googleland and loved it. You cut out a tree shape and have the kiddos stamp the tree with various Christmas stamps. Then you attach buttons or other decorations. I will attach it to red paper and let them write on it. Jaime, (From What's the Buzz - with the awesome new blog design!), had the idea of telling parents that they could cut it out and use it as an ornament after reading the card. LOVE that idea.

And then there's the crafting at home. I make gifts for my friends when we have our annual cookie exchange - which is tomorrow by the way and I still don't know what cookie I'm making. Ahh!!
Anyway, I TRY to make something crafty and this is what I made this year. I used a $1.00 frame from Michael's, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and a book. I know I shouldn't cut up a book, but it wasn't one that I'll read, so that's okay, right? I have to find a little friendship poem to go inside.

Have a good weekend!!
:) Andrea

The Magic of Puppets

I have this puppet that I usually pull out to help teach history, but this year I decided to use it in a different way. His name is Small Moment Sam and he was with us for our writing lesson today. It's amazing how engaged the children are when I use a puppet. I didn't use a puppet voice, but instead, Sam talked in my ear and I told the kids what he was saying. They were cracking up, but also listening closely when he was talking about stretching small moments. Sam will be back tomorrow! I also have a "Grandma" puppet. Hmm...what could I use her for? :)

                                        Meet Small Moment Sam!
:) Andrea

Conferring Shortcuts!

I'm so excited about the Conferring Shortcuts that Jaime from What's the Buzz in First posted! I don't know about you, but at times I struggle with ideas for conferring. These solve that problem! Thanks for posting them, Jaime, and if you haven't checked them out yet, head over to What's the Buzz by clicking here!

Reading Fluency and a Freebie! :)

What a week this has been and it's only Wednesday! We have our Halloween party on Friday and my kiddos can't wait! I've been trying to keep our days as normal as possible, but it's hard!

Today, we talked about reading fluently. And I showed them this:

Yes, yogurt and cottage cheese. (I don't know where I got this idea. I wish I could give someone credit, but I honestly can't remember where I saw it.) So we talked about how readers need to sound smooth, like yogurt, and not all choppy like cottage cheese. I showed them how the yogurt looks and slides off of the spoon and how the cottage cheese is very slow to come off of the spoon. Then, I read some text and they had to use their sign language (yes or no) to tell me if I was reading like yogurt! This lesson works perfectly every year!

And now a Halloween freebie! Our word family for the week is the -it family, so we will be making words. I made a Trick or Treat recording sheet. They put the real words under treat and the nonsense words under trick. I made a blank one as well since you may be working on a different word family! Enjoy!

                                                                               or

Clipart courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles.

:) Andrea

Pumpkin Activity

We've been learning about the life cycle of pumpkins this week. My kiddos LOVE the Five Little Pumpkins poem. We've read it and acted it out many times and it's now in their poetry warm-up book. I brought in a pumpkin today to carve, but I thought it would be fun to have that pumpkin roll away and find it. So I told them the story of how I brought it in and then it was gone. I told them how I thought about the 5 little pumpkins and I was worried. They know I love to make up songs, so we sang this together. (Click to see the whole song.)

They were so excited to go find it! I heard, "We should get our magnifying glasses",  "Wow, this is a real adventure!" and "I should bring paper to write down clues!"
So I put up a few clues around the school and we searched for our pumpkin. We went to the gym and they thought we should search in the bag of balls because it could have rolled in there. They were very worried that someone might be making pumpkin pie in the teacher's lounge. They were searching everywhere for seeds. (Great idea for next year!) They would run up to teachers and ask, "Have you seen a rolling pumpkin?" When we finally found it, I heard, "This was the best adventure ever!" :)

If you'd like to see my clues, click below.

Now I have to go roast the pumpkin seeds to bring for a snack tomorrow. TGIF!

:) Andrea

Ahhh...the weekend

What a week! There's so much to do and never enough time! We've been learning about insects and spiders. If you don't have Deanna Jump's fabulous insect unit, get it! She has an activity where the kids build a bug out of candy. We did this today and I let them choose whether they wanted to make an insect or a spider. The kids LOVED this activity!

We also made shape Pete the Cats. We love Pete! (Thanks, Kindergarten Crayons for the idea!) If you didn't know, Pete the Cat is available in the Scholastic Seesaw October catalog. So many of my kids ordered it and can't wait to take it home!

 I wanted to share our fave sight word game in case you hadn't seen it before.

Sorry I can't get the second pic to face the right way, but you can still see it. They have to catch a fish with their rod. If they know the word on the bottom of the fish, they get to keep it. If not, I tell them the word and they have to "throw it back in the pond" to try again later.  The winner is the person who has the most fish at the end of the game. I usually ask them to read their words at the end of the game either to a partner or the adult in charge of the game. My kiddos beg to play this game! Here is a recording sheet in case you want to have them write the words that they know. Thank you K-3 Resources for the fish clipart!

And finally, this has nothing to do with my classroom, but I just finished a wreath that I saw on Pinterest and wanted to share. I've never made a wreath before, but I love Fall and Halloween. It says "Come in and sit a spell...".

Have a wonderful weekend! I'm going to the Lions game tomorrow and I'm so excited!

:) Andrea