A Sunday Special: Snowman Craftivity {FREEBIE}

Today's freebie is not normally free but I'm making it free for this week because I didn't get a new freebie made this week   love you all so much!   Click on the pic to go download this week's freebie.  Hope you like!

A Sunday Special: Penguin Themed Math Center {FREEBIE}

I LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. making things to use in my classroom.  I can say that creating items has truly reignited my passion for teaching AND since I'm so sweet I've decided to share a freebie with you all every Sunday.  There is a teensy, weensy catch.  These freebies may not be freebies forever.  Some will.  Some won't.  BUT they will all be free from the time I post them on Sunday through the following Saturday so you better get 'em while the gettin's good!  Most of the freebies will be things I'm using in my classroom right now but if there's ever anything you'd like to see as a freebie, leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do.  So without further ado, here's this week's FREEBIE!

Website Wednesday

I'm all about some alliterative phrases these days!  Can you tell?   Hehe! 

A few months ago our sweet librarian at school had guest readers come in and read to all the classes at our school.  She sent us a link to the website so we could display the book on the promethean board and the reader could read it from the screen.  I totally forgot about it until the other day.  I thought I would share it in case someone out there hasn't heard about it or forgot about it like I did.  It has some of the best books available for FREE and everytime someone reads a book from the site, they donate a book.  We are starting our penguin unit and I found some awesome informational texts to add to the books I'm reading.  The website is wegivebooks.org.  You do have to set up a login and password but it's free!

AND they have the new Molly Lou Melon book!!!!  Is she not the cutest, little, ugliest book character you ever did see?  Has everyone read Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon?  If not it's on there too and you have to read about the endearing little Molly Lou and her grandmother.   Makes me smile thinking about her!

Winter Fun

Despite the 70 ish degree weather we've had the past few days here in the south, my sweeties at school have been having lots of fun learning about winter.

We made these cute snowmen crafts and then used adjectives to fill in the blanks and describe our snowmen.  I love how different each one looks despite everyone being given the same materials (with the exception of the colors of the earmuffs and scarves).  I started by making a large version of the snowman.  We then labeled the different parts on the big snowman and talked about how we can use labels from pictures to help us spell words we may not know when we write.  I wrote a story about my snowman and we made lists of different adjectives we could use to describe our snowmen.  Then each student filled in their own "Do You 'Snow' Who I Am?" writing page. 

Here are a few of our winter themed centers we've been working on during our morning literacy centers.

Flow Map for There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow!

At this center I wrote our popcorn words for the week on ping pong balls and they scooped out a "snowball" and wrote the word on the recording sheet.

At this center they turn a card over, read the word on the hat, find the word on the recording sheet and color it in thhe corresponding color.



Long O/Short O Vowel Sound Sort

If you'd like to win a copy of the 3 items these came from leave me a comment and I'll choose a winner tomorrow.  Don't forget to leave your email address.

Congrats Dina!  They've been sent to your email.

Sunday's Sight Word {FREEBIE}

Here's a seasonal sight word game to make learning  high frequency words fun for students.  Click on the cover pic to go to my TPT store and download this free game.  I hope you and your students enjoy!

A Little Elf Magic

Does one of Santa's magical little friends visit your classroom each year?  If not, you are missing out on some much needed sanity at this time of the year!  Our Elf on the Shelf, Elfie, made his appearance Monday when we came back from Thanksgiving break and my sweeties have been absolutely wonderful these past two days.  What's even more fun is that I've incorporated the Elf on the Shelf all in our learning this week using my Elf on the Shelf: Literacy and Math Activities.  I just realized how yucky my pics look.  I guess that's what happens when you leave your "real" camera at home and use your phone instead.  Sorry!

Syllable Sort

I held up the pictures and called on a student to name the picture and clap while saying the word to tell how many syllables the word had and then added it under the elf with that number.  They do the same for the recording sheet and color in the elves to show how many syllables are in the word.

Patterning

There are several different pattern cards.  On the back of each is a small envelope.  The cards to duplicate the pattern on top, extend the pattern in the middle, and create a pattern on the bottom are placed on the back of each card in the envelope.  On the recording sheet they cut and glue to extend the patterns.

Here's Elfie!  And yes I'm cheap like that!  We have a plush Elf on the Shelf that was $18 compared to the $30 ones.  There's my note from Santa and of course, he sent one to the boys and girls as well.  The middle pic is of our behavior forms Santa sent for me to fill out at the end of each day.  Elfie takes them to Santa at the North Pole each night so Santa knows if our class was good or bad that day. It's working!  We're 2 for 2 on the smilies.

Elf on the Shelf Craft

We're making these tomorrow.  Each one will have the same hair and eye color as the student who makes it.  Then we will do a little writing so Elfie can let Santa know what we want for Christmas.

Beginning Sounds

Students match the picture each elf is holding with the letter that it begins with.  For the recording sheet, I just have them turn over an elf card and say the picture name and write the beginning letter sound.

Counting Candy

Students count the candy on each card and match it to the elf with that number then record it in the correct spot on the recording sheet.

Number Sequencing

Students line the elves up in number order 1-10, 11-20, or 1-20. 

Count the Room/Write the Room

Students find the elves hiding in the room and record their answers on the recording sheets. 

If you need some Elf on the Shelf magic for your room, you can check it out here or by clicking the pic below.  It's on sale now for $5.20 plus you can get another 10% off by using the code CMT12.



{FREE} Let's Talk Turkeys! Craftivity

We've been gearing up for Turkey Day the last couple of days with a couple of craftivities.  Our first order of business was to make these sprawled out turkeys.  I think they turned out absolutely adorable but MERCY ME if you have a student that has a little difficulty following directions and you want to keep all of your hair, you may want to forego the turkey making process with that child.  Totally kidding (sort of)! 

We read some informational texts about turkeys and made a tree map.  I forgot to snap a pic of the tree map but we included things that turkeys are, can do, and have.  The students were able to supply words to complete each section based on what they had learned about turkeys from the texts we read.  We then used the tree map to fill in the blanks on our Turkey Talk writing page.  You can get this FREE packet here or by clicking on the pic below. 

We also made the little indian children that you can see in the display.  I tied these to math and we learned about pattern cores.  They glued their pattern core to their little headbands on their indians.  Then they extended the pattern on a sentence strip.  And NO the pattern strips are not beside the indian children that they go with (with the exception of the redheaded indian child).  We totally ran out of room on the wall and ended up sticking them up wherever there was room.  Can you believe they only get to stay up for another week and then it'll be time to deck the halls??? AHHH!  Where has the year gone?