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Holidays

Elf on the Shelf – Days 1-3

Holidays December 4, 2014

I am in love with Elf on the Shelf. The school I’m at is huge into holidays and all 3 second grade classes have an elf. My kids are loving it, I’m loving it, and it’s helping keep behavior contained in this crazy month of December. Here’s what our elf, named Sparky has been up to.

Day #1
 
The kids decided that on Day #1 he had bungee jumped from above the white board.  They like that our guy is a bit of a daredevil.  We also voted on names and decided to call him Sparky.  I’m an ASU Alum and a few of my student’s parents are too.  I got this cute introduction letter from the Primary Journey on TPT.
Day #2
The next day he created a tower out of snap cubes and decided to climb it. He also left us a note and a mess at the bottom.
Day #3
The kids loved this one! I saw this idea on Pinterest.  Sparky decided that he loved his name so much he wanted to decorate the room with it. My kids loved it and thought he put graffiti on the wall!

Elf on the Shelf Investigation Log 
Each day my students are filling out their Elf Investigation Log that I got out of Sunny Days in 2nd Grade’s Elf Classroom Resources. You can find that on TPT here.
 
 
Does your class have an Elf on the Shelf? What has your elf been up to? Comment below.

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Five for Friday…well Saturday

Holidays, Reading, Report Writing November 24, 2013
I’ve seen this awesome Five for Friday linky party and been meaning to join it, but I can’t seem to get my act together on Fridays.  So, this week instead of Five for Friday….we’ll call it Five for Saturday.  I’ll try to be more on time next week :-).  Join in on the Linky Party fun with Doodle Bugs Five For Friday.

 
 
Best Homework Response Ever! We asked the kids to write about where they live and give details/facts.  This student wrote, ” I live in Las Vegas.  It is the city of sin.”  Too funny!

 
So, I’m in a portable at my school and the heating/AC doesn’t work at night and it turns on every morning when you walk in…or so I thought.  So, every morning it takes awhile/2 hours to warm up.  Only problem was Friday it just never warmed up.  Apparently the heater is broken and finally by 3:00 it was 66 degrees, but for most of the day we were hovering around 59.  No heat, in a portable, on a rainy day = no fun.  But, we made the best of it wearing our winter coats while we worked.

 
 
Back to the rainy day on Friday in my number 2.  Rainy day =  no recess = cold kids and restless kids.  So, for our indoor recess – we did a Thanksgiving Deskercise video.  I love these videos – great way to get the kids moving all while they’re learning facts at the same time.
 

 
The last 2 weeks we’ve been working our way through 1st Grade is WienerFUL’s Turkeys and Thanksgiving packet on TPT.  She has great ideas and lots of great resources for informational text reading and writing and additional Thanksgiving activities.  On Friday, we read the book The Pilgrim’s First Thanksgiving and filled out her Thanksgiving tree map and then wrote All About The First Thanksgiving. Check out her awesome packet here…

 
 We also read the book Turkey Trouble this week.  It is about a turkey that doesn’t want to be eaten on Thanksgiving so he tries to disguise himself as different animals that won’t get eaten.  It’s a pretty cute story with a funny ending that my students loved.  After reading it, we then wrote about what we would disguise a turkey as so it wouldn’t be eaten.  Their responses were so cute! Some students chose animals – cat, dog, duck, etc and then the few I posted below chose the Hulk, Spiderman, and a ninja.  Great creative writing response to a fun book!
 

 
 
Thanks for checking out my Five for Friday/Saturday.  Be sure to link up here…
 
 
 
 
 

New Year’s Resolutions

Holidays January 29, 2013

I’m aware New Year’s was a few weeks ago, but this is one of my favorite activities so I had to post it.  Every year on the first day back from Winter Break we talk about New Year’s resolutions.  I always start by reading the book Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution. This book puts explaining a resolution in simple terms and also shows some examples that the kids understand.

After reading the story, we come up with a list of resolutions. The kids pick things like – “I will read more books, I will try to stay on green, I will try to help people, etc.  Then, they write their resolution on a piece of “toast” (used the die cut machine at school) and we make a “Toast to 2013.” See bulletin and examples below.

I want to help others be good students.
 

I want to be a better reader.
 
I want to make people happy.
 
 
And, a belated Happy New Year’s to everyone!