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.

Beginning Sounds (December)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...at least at everyone else's house. I haven't found the time to get out my Christmas decorations yet. How about you?

I can't believe we only have three weeks until Christmas Break! I think I get more excited than the students at this time of the year.

We will have taught every letter of the alphabet before Christmas break ends. Hopefully you have taught most of them too, so here's some practice for beginning letter sounds and a great deal too. Students get so excited when they start seeing pictures of Santa, Christmas trees, and gifts. This simple beginning sounds pack allows students to enjoy Christmas as well as show their knowledge of beginning sounds. The following photos show 2 of the 4 included pages.

Beginning Sounds (December)

 

The teacher should name each picture so that the students are familiar with the pictures. The product description names each picture if you are unsure of any of them.

 

To add more skills and to include different levels of activities, students can label the pictures after cutting and gluing the letter for the beginning sound. You can see in the pictures below that some students did label their pictures. I love seeing how they sound out their words. Then students can color the Christmas pictures. Also, for those students who are ready, they can write a sentence for each picture on the back of their paper, using good writing skills, of course. I get so excited when I can read everything a student has written without them having to read their writing to me. They get excited too when I can read it. They always say, "How do you know what that said?" I always reply with, "Well, you did such a super job stretching and sounds out your words that I could read it." That makes them so proud of their work.

 

Take a look at one of these four sheets in action showing the different activities they can do with it (cutting and gluing beginning sounds, labeling pictures, coloring, and writing sentences). The students had a blast with these Christmas pictures, and I hope your students do, too! ENJOY!

 

 

They really seemed to enjoy coloring these Christmas pictures after cutting and gluing the beginning sounds.

I love how these two students labeled each picture.

 

 

The pictures below show two students who went the extra mile to write a sentence on the back of their paper for each picture shown. My students know that they are not to just sit and do nothing. I always tell them that there is always more they can add.  

1. I got a hat. 2 My reindeer is brown. 3. Santa is big. 4. The elf is here. 5. My star is yellow. 6. My candle is black.

1. I can put on the hat. 2. The reindeer can go fast. 3 Santa Claus gives me something. 4. I see the star in the sky. 5. I light up my candle. 5 Elves make toys.

 

 

I hope your students enjoy this beginning sounds activity for December.

This Beginning Sounds (December) is available for 

ONLY $1.00 for 3 days!

Tuesday, December 2nd (on Tuesday, December 2nd, get an additional 10% off when using promo code TPTCYBER)

Wednesday, December 3rd &

Thursday, December 4th

 

You can click on any of the photos above to access it or click HERE! 

 

I hope your students ENJOY this Beginning Sounds (December) pack. 

 

Thanks for stopping by!