A Bitter Sweet Christmas and a New Baby

   I hope all of you had a fabulous, restful, and magical Christmas with family and friends. After cooking and cleaning for family the last couple of days I was glad to have a quiet day today. It was definitely a bitter sweet one for my family as it will probably be the last in our current home. My hubby has been making the almost 2 hour trek daily to work each day the past 10 years so we have decided to move closer to his work. Taking down the Christmas decorations today was a little sad as this is the home my youngest has grown-up in, but I know great things will be in store for us in 2014! Beginning with our newest family member...

   Say hello to our Cockapoo Zoe! Our plan yesterday was to hit up the sales at the mall, go to the movies, and have a nice dinner. Well, while we waited for the hubs to finish his chair massage (did you know they give these in the middle of the mall? I think it is a little creepy, but the hubs loved it) the kiddos and I decided to take a look in the pet shop. Did I for once think we would walk out with a puppy. NO WAY! But once my kiddos locked eyes with Zoe the waterworks began. Not because they knew they could not get a puppy, but because she looks very similar to our former Cockapoo Jack who passed away several months ago. Well how do you say no to that...especially with the hubs who is a sucker for the boys. Thank goodness we got a ridiculous deal on her.

 We were a little emotionally drained last night so do not let his face fool you. They are besties already!

Awwww! Love at first sight. 

   Who knew a puppy was like having a brand new baby! We are kennel training so our house sounded like the beginning scene from Lady & the Tramp last night and we did have to go outside twice, but the new baby comes with no weight gain and soft hypoallergenic fur!So relaxing, grading writing prompts, and finishing some upcoming units will take a little longer than expected. But how can you be too bummed by this face...

   

Christmas Around the Classroom & Saying Goodbye to Manning

   I have to start this posting by saying how much I LOVE my new blog design by the 3am Teacher. She did such a fabulous job and I feel like I have a new baby in my life! Check out her store on TPT here and her blog here for fabulous ideas and clip art!

   It feels so weird not prepping for the classroom tomorrow. Wait, who am I kidding!!! I cannot wait to sleep in and finish up Christmas shopping. Speaking of Christmas last week was very eventful in the classroom. Here is a look at our week in pictures...

 My kiddos parent gifts.....reindeer hand print melted crayon art!!!

   Here's how we made these precious works of art. We took simple canvases and stamped our hands on them with various brown colors. We then hot-glued crayons to our "fingers" except the thumbs. My kiddos favorite part was taking a blow dryer to the tips of the crayons to melt them. 

 I then took all of the canvases home and mod podge reindeer heads on under each hand print. 

 Only 23 to mod podge and add red noses to. 

 We also made reindeer food to go along with our art, but we got to eat it! 

 What are presents for parents without presents for kiddos too? 

 Each kiddo received a book on their level, pencils, stickers, candy, and free book coupon from Scholastic. 

   Along with all of our festivities last week it was time to say goodbye to a little elf. Manning ended his mischief on Friday. My kiddos had grown so attached to Manning in his short time with us. A few tears were shed on Friday as they left the classroom. I knew they all wanted to give him a hug, but they were too worried about him losing his powers to fly to the North Pole. Here is a look at some more of Manning's daily shenanigans.

 Making snowflakes. How artistic is he!

 Someone let Happy Feet out again, but this time for a snowball fight!

 Who made this mess?

 And this mess? This very tidy and organized teacher was a bit anxious with the mess Manning left. 

 Manning's letter says, "Santa does not like messes not one little bit. Hurry you better clean up and make it quick!" And yes, he is hanging from the ceiling. 

 Someone is trying to rush the 100th day of school!

 Where am I supposed to read???

 Someone got together with Ms. Laboy's classroom elf, Brandon, and messed with our principals computer!

 Manning and Brandon having too much fun with the photocopier. 

   And even more pictures of the two besties! Manning wrote on the white board, "Brandon made me do it!". After the laughter from my kiddos they all decided that Manning was not making a good choice blaming Brandon for all of the pictures posted around the room. So they suggested that he needed to be more proactive and take responsibility for his actions. They are just too cute!

   And this is what my kiddos found on Friday. It was fitting that Manning had bells for each kiddo as it was our Polar Express day. This little guy will be missed, but he has a more important job to prepare for the next two days!

Thank You Sale

  This will be a quick post tonight. With all of the craziness of the last week scrambling to get winter assessments completed, making two days of sub plans, and trying to keep my classroom kiddos calm, I am over the moon with all of my supporters here and over on TPT. I just sold my 1,000 product this week! I could never image the products I make for my classroom would be used by so many more. As a giant THANK YOU everything in my store is on sale through tomorrow night. Click on the image below to be taken to TPT. Happy early TGIF!

Classroom December Decor, Our Elf, & Upcoming Week

   This post will be a whole bunch of randomness! We have had a GREAT week despite the arctic cold that hit our state. We started the week in the 60's on Monday and then dropped to the single digits and below zero the rest of the week. Thank goodness our classroom elf, Manning, has warmed our classroom spirit up! You can read about Manning's arrival and my Elf on the Shelf unit here. After reading about his special mission it was time for my kiddos to find him each morning to draw and write about him in their journals.

 Monday: Manning arrives in style!

 Tuesday: Forget elf, mountain climber perhaps?

 Wednesday: Least someone got to sleep in on this c.....o.....l....d morning. 

 Thursday: Oh no! Where is our class pet Happy Feet?

 Manning has decided to become mischievous and piggyback ride our class pet! 

 Friday: Payback perhaps for yesterdays mischief? 

Here is a peek at part of Manning's plan for Monday. More to come later in the week!

   Last weekend I posted some pictures of my home for the holidays and this weekend I wanted to post some pictures of my home away from home...the classroom.

 Here is our writing center. I have a bunch of gingerbread materials out to support our Compare & Contrast unit we completed last week. (You can read about that here.) There are stickers, stamps, finger puppets, fancy paper, stencils, stuffed writing buddies, and picture prompt cards from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer movie. 

 Here is a look at our much loved Christmas Writing Tree. I have a bunch of arctic animals placed on the tree that the kiddos can take off and write about. This is a picture from later in the week when their "clean-up decorating" is not so pretty. 

 I changed the circle colors above my student work tree trunks out in the hall to whites, blues, and grays to represent snow. These are now covered with our gingerbread proper noun flip books. 

 This is our classroom door. The kiddos love the bells on our door ringing every time they go in and out. 

 One my my teammates door. I made asked if they could put bells on their doors too!

My other teammates door. She has bells on her door knob too! Hehe!

   Our kiddos have been having so much fun the past week with our Christmas Around the World unit. (You can read about it here.) I just love the setup we have this year being able to travel to all of the countries. This week I have the pleasure to take my kiddos to Russia and England. For Russia we will be making folding nesting dolls and for England we will be making these Christmas Poppers.

   My kiddos have been collecting toilet paper rolls for this activity for weeks not knowing what we will be using them for. We will decorate the outside of tissue paper with markers, fill the inside of the rolls with candy and little toys (those are already in my classroom),then rolling up our decorated paper and twisting the ends. Once our travels are over the kiddos get to pull both ends of the paper to make the tube "pop" and release all of their goodies.
   We are finally taking a break from addition with regrouping in math to measurement. Here is a look at the anchor chart we will use on our math focus wall to help use identify various measuring tools.

   On Tuesday we will be making our own "rulers" and measuring various sized candy bars and gummy worms. (Thank god I am not a very big candy lover because I have a lot of candy in my bag right now!) We will then be discussing and completing activities with inches, centimeters, and feet. We will finish the week by making a life sized gingerbread house with specific measurements within a group.
   I just checked the temperature for tomorrow and it is going to get up to 21 degrees! YIPPEE! A heat wave is right around the corner folks! Have a great upcoming week.

Our Classroom Elf, Manning, Has Arrived!

   Last night I was really nervous about the first day back from Thanksgiving break. How were my rambunctious kiddos going to act.....let alone my normal kiddos. I was VERY surprised that my kiddos were on their best behavior. It could be perhaps that our classroom elf made his arrival today.

    I thought it would take my kiddos forever to notice our package from the North Pole sitting on my reading chair especially with all of the Christmas decorations around our room. But, those kiddos are observant when I don't want them to be!!! They all noticed the box as they were walking into the room as though there was a blinking arrow above it. We used our inferring skills to make a prediction of what was in the inside of the box. My kiddos were so excited to see our elf, read the letter from Santa and The Elf on the Shelf book, and get their own writing journal. My favorite part was my kiddos coming up with a name for our classroom elf. I picked five kiddos at random and they gave me a name and spelling. Here were our five choices......

   I love the spelling of Elpherd. We are working on "ph" as another choice to the /f/ spelling and this kiddo really wanted the /ph/ spelling. I also thought it was too cute that we had four really creative names and then a Thomas. That made me chuckle. Anyways it was a close race and Manning scored with my kiddos. Can you tell my kiddos are a little Denver Broncos crazy?!?!? After learning that we cannot touch Manning (so that he doesn't lose his magical powers to fly to the North Pole each night to report to Santa) you would have thought that Santa Claus was sitting at my desk all day. My kiddos were little angels....even my rowdy boys. Is there a way Manning can stay in our classroom until the end of the year? Well Manning is already up to some tricks. I wonder how long it will take my kiddos to find him tomorrow morning?

    You still have time to snag my Elf on the Shelf: A Classroom Unit for 28% off in my TPT store through tomorrow. Have a magical night!

Christmas Around the World & The Night Before Christmas Units

   Are you getting excited for Cyber Monday?!?!? I have added two more Christmas themed units in my Teachers Pay Teachers just in time for the big sale tomorrow and Tuesday. Remember to enter the code CYBER to get your full 28% off!

    Tomorrow we start our Christmas Around the World unit. I am so excited because this year we will be rotating our kiddos through all three of our rooms to "visit" each country in 30 minute rotations. One of my new kiddos to the building told me at the beginning of the year that she loved going to other classrooms last year in her school. I loved that idea of our kiddos traveling to each room instead of my teammates and I teaching to our own writing kiddos. And doing it this way lets our second grade kiddos travel to even more countries...16!!! Tomorrow I will have my normal writing kiddos so we can build our background of maps versus globes, continents, and modes of transportation. We will then make our suitcase, which will hold each countries crafts, and our passports so we are able to enter the country classroom. You can grab my "Christmas Around the World" unit over in my TPT store. (Remember tomorrow you can get it for 28% off!!!)

    This week in my Walk to Read room my kiddos will not have their typical intensive rotations. My two Walk to Read teaching buddies will begin winter assessments (WHAT!!! ALREADY!!!) and my kiddos will stay in my room for the whole 90 minutes! We are going to be working on a lot of the ELA Common Core Standards. I am using my The Gingerbread Man Compare & Contrast Unit this week and then next week we will use my The Night Before Christmas Compare & Contrast unit. I am so excited for this unit because it contains four retelling crafts. I love me some crafts!!! Retelling is the comprehension strategy we are working on for the month of December. You can grab this unit over in my store too. (Do I have to mention that it is on sale tomorrow?!?!?)

   Have a great night and set your alarm clocks a couple minutes early to snag some great deals in the morning!