Winter Things!

What a busy December!  I can't believe that Christmas is in a few days!  We are at school through today and trying to get some things done in between lots of sick kiddos and being wildly excited about Santa's arrival!  

We did our December Snazzy Snacks last week and they were adorable!  The recipe was for Rudie the Reindeer.  You use rice cakes, caramel sauce, and some fixins' to get these to turn out.

We also did this cute project from Christie over at First-Grade-Fever to go along with the book If you Take a Mouse to the Movies!  The kids love this story and have fun thinking about where they would take their mouse.

We also wrote about what we would do to help Santa if he got stuck in the chimney.  We read the book Santa's Stuck and talked about how we could help a stuck Santa.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful winter break and a happy holiday season!!

Holiday Word Search Freebie!

I was working on a few things for the upcoming week and made a some holiday word searches for you!  There is one for Hanukkah (which begins on Tuesday), Kwanzaa, and one with a Reindeer theme.  I hope you can use them with your class-enjoy!

Click on any of the pictures above to get your free copies!

Reader's Theater

Last week my class put on a Reader's Theater presentation for Thanksgiving.  They did a GREAT job!  We have been practicing for a few weeks and the kids were so excited/nervous to do it for their parents.  Here are a few photos to show you how it went.

Treats for after the performance!  

Thanksgiving Week!

Thanksgiving week is upon us!  I don't know what your school week looks like but we go through Wednesday at lunchtime!  Here are a few activities that we are doing to fill the shortened week!

Interactive Thanksgiving Books
The kids love taking these home right before Thanksgiving and sharing them with their families. They learn about the voyage on the Mayflower, chores of the pilgrim children, their housing and the first Thanksgiving feast!

To purchase this booklet click on the picture!

Contraction Practice

We start to really get into contractions about this time of the year.  The kids love that these 'PIES' actually help us learn our contractions.

Guided Reading

We are even reading about Thanksgiving this week with our Thanksgiving on Thursday book study!

 

To purchase this novel study click on the picture!

Snazzy Snacks

Last week we also did our November Snazzy Snack. We made Turkey Tracks!  It is so simple, they just spread cream cheese on a cracker and use chow mein noodles to make a 'turkey track' on the cracker!

Click here to get the sheets we use for Snazzy Snacks.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving holiday!

Donors Choose!

I am so excited about our Donors Choose project that just got posted!  Our classroom is hoping to get two iPads to use for guided reading and guided math!  

Sometimes we borrow them from the library and the kids LOVE using them!

For more information or to donate to the project click on the link:

http://www.donorschoose.org/ematuska 

Disguise Tom the Turkey!

This is a fun take-home project!  This kids take home the turkey to disguise at home and bring it back to school so we can write about it.  

Some of the things they think of are so cute - a cheerleader, a doctor, even Santa Claus!  

Then once they are all back we take some time to write about how their turkey is disguised.  

Click on any of the pictures below to get the free download.

 

Thankful Turkeys

Take a look at our November door theme!  This is a fun little turkey activity that doesn't require a lot of prep (except getting some paper pre-cut) and is a really cute hand and footprint activity.  

They partner up with a friend and trace both of their feet and their hands.  Then you put it all together to make this cute little turkey.  It is a great partner activity because they have to be slow and careful while they trace their partners hand.  They really do a nice job!

The only thing I have to get copied ahead of time are the feet on yellow construction paper and I attached a copy of that if you want to run it off.  

Also, for the mouth and gobble I pre-cut little yellow squares for them to fold a 3-D mouth and for them to draw and cut out their own gobble.

(click on the picture to get a copy)