Winter Fun

Have a look at the snowmen our class made!  Each year I read the story Snowballs by Lois Elhert and then I send home a snowman template with instructions to the families to make a snowman using their imaginations and "stuff"!

 I am always so impressed by the wonderful snowmen they create!  Aren't they amazing?!  

We are currently working on a project using the ipads to create a book using the app My Story about these amazing snowmen!  I love this app!  

We have been using the app Doodle Buddy to create Snowmen Diagrams.  Love, love, love them! 

The children will also be writing stories about their snowmen in the coming days and compiling all the pages we create into a digital book!  

We have also been working on our mini-unit about penguins!  I like to do mini research projects and then turn them into little booklets!  I have created a list of penguin facts that we sort and categorize into four groups together.  

We read the facts together on the overhead and decide on the code that we will use.  I created four categories for the facts.  They were:  What they Look Like, What they Eat, About the Babies, and Cool Facts.  I put the facts on the overhead and give each child their copy of the facts.  We read them together and decide on the code for each one.  Cool Facts gets a C, About the Babies is an B, What They Look Like is an L, and What they Eat gets an E.  

Then I pass out the four category pages and the children cut out the facts and paste them to the correct category based on the codes we have decided on.  The category pages are in the shape of the penguin's tummy.  I precut the penguin's body out of black paper.  An orange beak, two orange triangles for feet, and two stickers for the eyes complete the project!  We staple the completed category pages on the black penguin body and we have a funky penguin report! I love this project because it allows everyone to plug in at their level of readiness.  

We have been practising our addition skills using the winter workspaces from my Winter Fun package over the last few weeks.  P. S.  It's on sale at TPT on Super Sunday!  

I had a lot of fun finding new things for them to count with.  I found some cool foam snowflakes that are a bit hit, some snowflake buttons, and some cool little mitten and snowmen erasers at the  dollar store.  They don't seem to mind doing addition facts when they get to use these counters!  

They seem to enjoy the counting activity using these materials at centre time too!

This is part of the Winter Fun package, too!

We have been having a lot of fun with mittens!  We created this quilt working with pattern!  Lots of fun! 

More mitten stuff on the way!  

Counting Snowflakes and Snowmen!

We have been having a lot of fun with Winter activities this month!  One of the activities we have done is make a fun snowman flip book, a Winter is cloze activity, and a count up snowflake mini book!
I created a little mini book about catching snowflakes for the children to complete and keep!  First we read one of my favourite snowflake stories called Millions of Snowflakes.  It is by Mary McKenna Siddals and illustrated by Elizabeth Sayles.  It is really special and always a hit!
Then I introduced my class book version of Catching Snowflakes that the children chant read with me!

Then we make a mini version for them to keep.

 Because I am trying to introduce plurals I decided to make a version in which the children had to complete the frame on the page with the words that indicate the correct number on each page.

I have also created a version in which the children have to cut out the correct number of snowflakes to match the words on the page.  Right now, my children are more than ready to work on the word version.  They seemed to have a great time with it and were happy to read it and colour one page minimum.  Most coloured more than that!
You can find all versions of the book in my new Winter Fun package!

 I have also posted the mini book Catching Snowflakes as a freebie!

We had a great time making hundreds of snowmen with the snowman flip book activity.

I always do this book the first time it snows if I can!  First I read my favourite snowman book Sadie and the Snowman by Allen Morgan and illustrated by Brenda Clark.  Fabulous pictures and a very clever story! It is about a little girl who makes a snowman many times over during the winter and each snowman is a little different and a little the same.

We talk about how the snowman are each different.  Then I tell the children that although  I only drew four snowmen we can make many more snowmen with just these four! 

They don’t believe me until I staple the four sheets together, and cut the top three sheets between the top circle and the middle circle and between the middle and the bottom circle.  Then by flipping one or more of the strips I can make many, many more snowmen!  (Cutting only the first three pages gives the book a bit more stability).

I have the children make four different snowmen using their colouring materials on the snowman sheet. 

I draw a big snowman on the board  and we label the various parts. 

Then the children label their snowmen using the sentence frames.  I try to get them to add describing words to their  sentence frames by either adding colour words or descriptors.  For eg.  My  snowman has a black hat with a feather.

After they have completed the sentence frames for each part of the snowmen on each of the pages, I staple their book together and I make the cuts. 

Then they take their books with a partner and see how many different combinations of snowmen they can make!  Lots of writing and reading practise!  They always love it !   

I like to read Stella, Queen of the Snow by Marie Louise Gay to my class to help them think of things that make a picture in their head about Winter.  Then we brainstorm different things that mean winter.  The children choose their favourites to complete the Winter is frame.

  I have created two different versions for you to choose from in the Winter Fun package.

After the children have completed the Winter is frame they build these snow children to display their poem on.  I precut the toques and mittens out of wallpaper and precut the neck, scarf, face, and arms.  A quick demo and then the children put it all together!  They were very proud of them and came up with some really descriptive language! 

Snowmen!

Now that Christmas is over and the children have taken home their presents I can show you what we made for Christmas presents for Mom and Dad!  I have been making these snowmen with my classes for over 15 years I think... That means that there are hundreds of these guys out there.
And that best part is that I have parents coming and telling me that they come out every year for Christmas and are a favourite!
My husband is a secret helper in that he cuts up the wood for me!  Thanks, hubby!

Each year at the end of November I put three blocks of wood and a small piece of sandpaper in a ziplock bag for each of my students.  The blocks are one each of rough cut two by fours, two by threes, and two by twos!  I teach the children how to sand the blocks and we sand away for several weeks.  They love to sand and beg for "sanding time"!

When we decide they are smooth enough we have a painting day! We do one coat with white craft paint watered down.  The next day we do one coat of glitter paint really watered down.  I will be posting more detailed instructions at a later date.

Then we have a day when we put them all together!

They really look cute all together! 

I know the children really enjoyed making them!  I think they were pretty proud of them too!  

Fun Christmas Projects!

We worked on a variety of projects over the last few weeks!  We have a couple more to finish before Christmas!  Tomorrow we are going to make these neat ornaments as a buddy project!  I saw a few neat ornament projects using plastic ornament balls to make snowmen but couldn't get the materials organized easily or was worried how to do them quickly as a buddy project.
As I was wandering around our local craft store trying like mad to come up with an idea I realized that if I combined two different ideas together I had a quick and easy solution to my buddy project. One of the ornament ideas I saw on Pinterest had tinsel in the ball and another used ornamental snow in the ball to make a snowman face.  I pinned both ideas on my Pinterest site.  Brainwave!  Use white tinsel in the ball instead of the snow and draw the face on with sharpies!  Bought some tinsel that had snowflakes mixed in to the tinsel and experimented at home!  A three inch piece of tinsel pushed into the ornament with a pencil and a sharpie face drawn on and we are done.  Add the name and the date on the back and we have a keepsake for both the big buddy and the little buddy!

We also made a Christmas count-up book.  Take a look!

The children has fun decorating the trees in their books and then the cover of the book.  This one is from my Christmas fun package.  You can find it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  

The elf on the shelf has also been having fun in our classroom.  We made a little booklet chronicling some of her adventures with the little ghost named Gus who manages to hide my stapler and leave us notes each day.  

Here Sparkles and Gus are on a life size baby Stegosaurus that we had on our wall for a while.  

Each day they manage to find a different spot to visit in the classroom and have left puzzles and Christmas books on various days.  Lots of fun!  

This is our contribution to the door decorating contest!  

The children completed applications to become elves and then we made elves to hold the applications.  Found this great idea at The First Grade Parade.  Thanks!   There are lots of neat ideas there!  

Lots more to tell but have to go make some gingerbread!  Will post pictures of our Christmas presents soon!

Santa Hat Books

We started working on Christmas vocabulary words this week.  I used the Christmas vocabulary material from my Christmas Fun package.

The children seemed to really enjoy the activity and really did a great job! I decided to use the colour it yourself version and I am glad I did.  The colouring was a "want to" not a "have to" activity but most of the children choose to colour their booklets after they had finished matching the sentence strips to the correct picture.  Some even wanted to take their colouring pencils home so they could finish it at home!  They were doing that particular a job!  

I just used the pocket chart pages at the original size that they come in the package and they worked out great!  You can increase the size on your photocopier by selecting the option that lets you increase the size from an 8 X 11 sheet to an 11 X 17 sheet but I found I didn't need to.  I printed off a colour version of the pocket chart pictures and laminated them as well as the pocket chart strips this time.  But you don't have to as they work just as well just in paper form.  I didn't have time to laminate my Halloween package sentence strips and they are still in great shape.  

The children helped me match the sentence strips to the correct picture in the pocket chart.  When they went to their seats to do their own they did great.  I found that telling them to match the sentence strips to the pictures before cutting the sheets into pages worked really well. 

I made simple Santa hat covers for the books by folding a red construction paper in half and chopping off the  top two corners to make a hat shape.  A strip of white paper on the bottom and a cotton ball on the top and you have a funky Santa hat cover!  

We also worked on math addition concepts with the Christmas workspaces.  We call it "Add it Up" and the children really like it.   They use the workspaces to make an addition story at their desk.  They record their story on the Add it Up sheet and then go to their friend's desks and record their stories too.  There are 18 spaces on the worksheet and I have 22 students so they get lots of practise, have fun, and get a chance to move around too!  They love the new Christmas workspaces.  Especially the gingerbread house!  

I put out the counting tubs Christmas work spaces during Blue Bin time.  The children have to put the cards in order from one to ten.  Then they put the appropriate number of objects on each card.  Lots of counting practise and fun! 

Christmas Fun

I like Christmas a lot.  Right now I am trying to think up a new idea for our annual Door Decorating contest at my school.  The whole school gets into the act.  We have had some really neat doors.

These ones are just a few samples of the great doors that have been created at my school! 

This is one of my doors based on the gingerbread man story.  You can't see the door very well but it is supposed to be a cookie sheet of gingerbread men who are escaping down the road!

Another year, we made a gingerbread house!  We had a lot of fun with that one making up the patterned candies and gingerbread men.  

Still trying to think up a good one for this year!

Tomorrow is Cyber Monday!  My Teachers Pay Teachers stuff is on sale!  

I am working on some new stuff too.  Hopefully I will be able to complete it and get it posted before Christmas!  

I am looking forward to starting Christmas in my classroom soon!  I can't wait!  

I sound a bit like the kids, don't I?