Silence for Sandy Hook

Late Night Freebie!

I have had a couple of people ask for the templates for the Popsicle Stick Manger craft so I went ahead and uploaded it to mt TpT store....For FREE!  It is quite simple and you don't even really need templates, but if you are like me, it just makes it easier sometimes if its already done for you!  Just a little FYI:  I hot-glued the Popsicle sticks before hand to save time, but your kiddos could easily do that themselves too!

Enjoy!

Click HERE!

Night-
Lindsey

Short and Sweet!

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet because baby boy is sick with RSV! He's napping now, and I have a ton of things to get done during this time frame...fellow mommas ya get what I'm
Saying!? I'm trying to prepare for our State Kindergarten conference (Mon-Tues), get my house in order, coordinate with my room mom for our Christmas party, and make sure to reminder parents to turn in money for our field trip this coming Friday. My head is spinning! I was SUPER excited about my SDE Kinder conference, but with everything else going on, I feel like its the last thing I should be doing...only thing is, I can't back out! December really can get super crazy!!

Ok, so here are a few pictures of what went on in room 602 last week!!

Monday, the kiddos made their own advent wreaths and I was oh so proud, I definitely did not think they would be able to do as much on their own as they did!  My assistant and I pre-wrapped the pipe cleaners with tulle, which made it much easier for the children to work with.  Here is a completed one, done by one of the students.

 And we were also greeted by our sneaky classroom elf, Elfie!  Original right!??  But hey, that's what they voted for :)

 And Tuesday came around, and our poor little elf had to be hospitalized! Can you believe it, a little booger sweet heat touched him while I was lining the kids up to leave, and made the mistake of telling my assistants son, who then told me! Let's just say there was GUILT written ALL over the kids face the next day as I read the email from Santa about how HE knew what happend and who had touched him!

Thank goodness he made a quick recovery, because he was back in action playing the the Fridge :)

They really got a kick out of this one!  And YES, I did leave poor Elfie in the fridge overnight :(  He was stuck to the frost Thursday morning when I checked on him!  Oops...

Thursday, we found him playing with our games!

And Finally Friday, he went fishing!  That crazy elf!

We made these sweet little mangers with tongue depressors! {I have a million}

We studied the letter V this week and with it we did the "V is for Vixen craft" with a writing activity!  Take a look at some of the examples {This is my Reindeer Games Packet but I made it to Vixen by changing the red nose to brown}

he said he would go to Knox's house!

She was going to stop at her friend Mackie and Parker's house.

Yes, she is not a neat freak and needs a little work on spacing, but she is going to stop at her friends house!  I am so proud of her for getting this down on paper. 

And this little friend is going to go to the water park!

I am really enjoying pushing and watching these little ones grow with their writing skills!  It's amazing to see the growth so far, I can't wait for the end of the year!

And here is my favorite activity {thanks Pinterest!}that we did last week!  We started RACK'ing people! Random Acts of Christmas Kindess....that is!  I found a picture of the Grinch on Pinterest and tried to incorporate it into a classroom and home thing for the kids.  When they do kind things at home they write it down on the heart and bring it to school so we can make the Grinch's heart grow larger with a love for Christmas!  They loved it!  Our first RACK, was sneaking into the teachers lounge and taping a dollar bill to the vending machine....I'm sure I wasn't supposed to bring 26 kids in there, but hey! they had fun!

Here is the man himself!

The saying on the chevron posters came from a picture I saw and wish I could give credit to the original person, but the pin took me to a random place and apparently not the right blog.  I made up the little poem so that passer-byers would know what we were doing with a 6 foot tall Grinch stapled to our wall!  And yes, toot toot, cause I'm tooting my own horn....I DID draw this guy free-handed.  I even impressed myself and totally made my kids think I am an artist.   I am thinking of uploading the poems with the parent letter and hearts to TpT as a freebie....Leave a comment if you think it is something you might be interested in and I will go from there!

So, I know I forgot somethings from last week, but I am running out of time and need to get to my house!
Lots of Christmas love- Lindsey

And Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

December...Really!!??

Wow! December.  I can't believe it's that time already!  Three full weeks and then two weeks off.  Only three weeks to squeeze in lots of fun and get some report card testing done.  I have so many things that I want to do with my Kinders that I am afraid I won't have enough time!

I spent Monday through Wednesday of last week at a technology conference learning about all sorts of fun things that can be done with an iPad and Android tablets.  And let me tell you, IT'S AMAZING!  Too bad I don't have one for my classroom :(  But I am definitely putting it on my wish list.  I also got to play with the ActivTable...It's like a Promethean board but a table!    Have any of you seen these?  Or even luckier and actually have one!?  They were running a special and they were only $6,000 ;)  But goodness they were oh so cool.  I could totally see my kiddos fighting over that hunk of a machine!

Two of my co-worlers and I admiring the ActivTable on the Promethean bus!  LACUE  technology conference 2012, New Orleans, LA. 

When I returned Thursday, I was so afraid of horror stories that my assistant was going to tell me about how the kids were crazy,  so-and-so did that, or this mom called and needs you to call her back etc...  But my kids were very well behaved form what I understand. Kiss my brain, I was a happy happy teacher! 

At naptime, my principal came to inform me that while I was out, I missed the pinning of the Teach of the Year nominees and that a student or parent had nominated me.  I was so touched!  I have never been nominated for anything like that before.  It was a very sweet feeling knowing someone else out there, especially a student, appreciates me for what I am doing :)

We started our "Santa Claus is coming to town countdown." I grabbed this for 50% off @ Hobby Lobby and I am going to pick a student each morning to change the number outside in the hall.  Its a dry erase canvas...who knew!?  They SO enjoy pretending to be the teacher and writing on things like this.  And to be able to go and do it outside in the hall...You would swear that is like being student of the year! 

We also were able to start and complete our Elf Yourself glyphs!  They came out so stinkin' adorable!  I LOVE how they each have a little character and they loved getting creative with the the glyph part of it.  I always have a few who like the push the limit of following directions, but this time it worked and they were able to show off their creativeness!  Check out these cuties!

This was the writing activity that we decided to put into the body part of the Elf!   We talked as a whole group  about what you needed to do to be an Excellent Elf!  The stuff they came up with! Hilarious.

I absolutely LOVE this time of the year, especially teaching the younger kids.  They have such a wonderful innocence that I enjoy being around and it makes for a happy environment.  

On the Agenda for this week are our mini pip cleaner advent wreaths, "V" is for Vixen, and "J" is for Jesus candy canes.  

Click here for the original post

This is a sample wreath I made and we are going to make them as a class tomorrow!

Max {My Elf on the Shelf} will also make his grand appearance into room 602 this week.   I can't wait to see their faces when they find him!  I also found the HOLY GRAIL {well not really, but almost} of Elf tricks and printables!  I am just going to pray {REALLY HARD} that I can keep up with Max's shenanigans!

Here is the site where you can download the Elf on a Shelf Printables! 

FREE, yep, FREE Elf on the Shelf Printables

And here is a Currently Link Up with Farley at Oh Boy, Fourth Grade!

Please go by her blog is you would like to participate and link up!

I would love to hear what you are doing in your classroom this week if you have time to share!  I enjoy reading your comments!  

Night-

Lindsey