Students Creating Christmas Gifts for Parents

If you are like me, you are swamped with testing for the end of the quarter as well as trying to work in some fun Christmas activities and crafts. Here are the parent gifts my students made this year. 

They made a Rudolph card by tracing and cutting out their hands, some eyes, and a red nose and gluing a Christmas poem inside. Then the students made 2 ornaments for keepsakes for their parents. One was a foam train engine shape with their picture in it. The students chose Christmas shapes to decorate their train. The second ornament was simply a brown handprint with wiggle eyes and a red nose for Rudolph. 

The students colored a Christmas tree to decorate the front of a brown paper bag to use for wrapping their two ornaments. This was so much easier than what we normally do. When time is a factor, you definitely have to be flexible.

I hope you and your students have fun creating your parent gifts this year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Gingerbread Man Activities (Kindergarten)

My students had a BLAST with these gingerbread man activities! We read five different versions of the Gingerbread Man and compared the different versions. They loved it! 

My students also wrote to retell the beginning, middle, and ending of the Gingerbread Man! I thought they did an awesome job! Here are books two students created. 

I love her speech bubble saying, "Don't open the door" on her cover page. 

The woman cooked a gingerbread man.

The gingerbread man went out the door. All of the people ran after him. (Can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man.)

The fox gobbled the gingerbread man up! 

I thought she did a super job. She even made her own little ending! I love it!

I love the bright colors on the cover page of this book. We talk about making our covers bright and catchy so that someone would want to read our story.

The woman made a gingerbread man!

He hopped out of the oven. He went to the door. And he went to open the door. All of the people chased him! He kept on running.

The fox tricked him! Everybody was sad. The fox ate him!

I love reading their stories. They wrote these completely independently, and I am proud of the great authors they are becoming.

We also added some math as we sequenced numbers 11-20 with gingerbread cookies. They loved coloring their gingerbread cookies and putting them in order.

Aren't they precious? I love how this student made it so colorful!

They all did such a great job putting them in order. 

If you are interested in this number sequencing activity, you can find it HERE! 

Gingerbread Cookie Sequencing Numbers (0-20) and Number Words (zero-ten)

This pack also has numbers 0-10 and number words zero-ten included to provide for differentiation! A colored set is also included for a great math center! 

We also made these cute gingerbread headbands to wear to lunch today. This was a huge hit! 

This is a cute activity from The Education Center. They did such a great job coloring their headband pieces. 

We have more gingerbread activities planned for next week. 

I hope you and your students are able to have some gingerbread FUN! 

Hang in there! Only 5 more days for me before CHRISTmas break! How about you?

Merry CHRISTmas!

Letters to SANTA! (Kindergarten Writing)

Have your students written their letters to Santa yet? My students wrote their letters this week. They had fun choosing from the different letter templates which are also differentiated. They were so excited! They had so many gift requests, but I only let them ask Santa for three gifts. They also wanted to ask Santa so many questions. Here are a couple of the letters my students wrote! 

Dear Santa, 

I have been a good girl. Santa, please give me a bicycle. Santa please give me a cat toy and a new helmet. I love Rudolph! I will give you some cookies and milk. 

Your Friend, _________

Dear Santa,

I am being a good girl from now on! I want please Santa, a gingerbread man, a cute puppy. Please Santa and my friends and family to be happy. I love you! I will leave you presents.

Love, ___________

I'm so excited that they are at this level of writing independently. I can't wait to see what their writing will look like by the end of the year. 

If you are interested in these templates and even more varieties, you can find them HERE!

SANTA LETTER TEMPLATES 

I hope your students have fun writing their letters to Santa! 

Merry Christmas!

Ten Frames 0-10 (Christmas - Winter)

It was nice going back to school and getting into the Christmas spirit! My students enjoyed working quietly on these Christmas Ten Frame activities as the fire crackled on the Promethean board with Christmas music playing in the background. If you think your students would enjoy them, you can find them at the link below. Get them for 28% off today (11/30/15) by using code "SMILE" at checkout!

You can find them HERE!

You can find the crackling fireplace and Christmas music HERE!

I hope you and your students enjoy these activities.

Milestone FREEBIE!

WOO! HOO! I’m celebrating a PERSONAL MILESTONE in my TPT store! 

While this is not a TPT milestone, I am excited to share that I have recently surpassed selling 25,000 units (resources) in my store! I would like to thank everyone who has made this possible. Thank you for the confidence you have shown in me by purchasing my resources to use with your students. I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope your students become successful learners through the use of my creations.

Please enjoy this nine page FREEBIE that offers some samples of my creations along with links to many of my best selling resources. This freebie is mostly geared toward the winter months since this is when I surpassed this personal milestone. A few of the pages included are shown below. Click on any of the photos to view the entire FREEBIE!

I would also like to thank all of the very talented artists on TPT that create such amazing clip art for me to use in my resources. They really help bring the resources to life! 

Please let me know how you like this freebie by leaving me some FEEDBACK so that I can better meet your needs! Thank you so much!

ENJOY! 

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Number Sequencing 0-20 and number words (zero-ten) - PUMPKINS

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Is everyone ready for some yummy pumpkin pie? Pumpkins are great for using during the entire fall season. They can be used in October and November. 

My students enjoyed this fun number sequencing activity with pumpkins. This activity only shows numbers 0-10 in use, but the pack also includes 11-20 and number words zero-ten. 

This activity can be completed as a whole class lesson, used in small guided math groups, or it can be placed in a 
math center.

First, the students enjoyed coloring their pumpkins.

Then, they cut out the pumpkins. 

As they cut the pumpkins out, they put them in order along a sentence strip for me to check the order before gluing. Students used the number line on the classroom wall for reference when needed.

After having their number order checked, students glued their pumpkins in order from 0-10.

I thought my students did a great job with sequencing numbers 0-10. 

One student even took it to the next level and wrote the number word on each pumpkin. Look closely at the top of each pumpkin where she wrote each number word with her pencil. 

We will work on sequencing 11-20 and number words zero-ten next. 

If you are interested in this number sequencing pack, 

you can find it HERE! 

I hope your students enjoy this fun pumpkin sequencing activity!

If interested, I have several other number sequencing packs with different themes in my TPT Store! 

Thank you for stopping by!

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Kindergarten Writing Ideas (Week 3) (Writing Samples)

My students are really loving to write this year. We talk about putting our thoughts on paper. I tell them that when we talk, our words just go into the air, but when we write, our ideas go on paper and can be read by a lot of people. We also talk about how fun writing is and that we are ALL writers!

We are teaching students to write about what they know. They can't write about things they do not have experience with. We made a chart showing ideas that we know about. 

Students can write about ideas from the chart or other things they know about. Before they write, I have a few students tell what they are going to write about. Then I choose one student's idea and model good writing with their idea. We discuss what good writer's do: start sentences with capital letters, use lowercase letters throughout the rest of the sentence, leave spaces between words with our space stick, put an ending punctuation mark, spell word wall words correctly, and stretch the other words. 

Here are a few student writing samples from week three. I am excited about how well these students are writing this early in the school year. 

My dog is going to play outside. He is brown.

I go to school and I love teacher. She is beautiful and Jonathan is my friend, you and me.

I like to play my Xbox 360 and I like to play my WWE (wrestling) game.

My friends are playing on the new playground and it was fun. I love it! 

I love how this last one even has labels and an ending. 

I can't wait to see how their writing grows during the school year. I will be sharing more about our writing throughout the school year. Stay tuned for future writing!

Thanks for stopping by!