I love Christmas in Kindergarten! (Five for Friday! - Late)

Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays! I love all aspects of the holiday but I think my favorite part is sharing different stories and legends with my Kindergarten kiddos. We talk about the Gingerbread Man (and all his counterparts), elves, Santa, Christmas Trees, Poinsettias, The Polar Express, Candy Canes and that most fabulous reindeer Rudolf! I love seeing the joy and belief in my kiddos faces. It just warms my heart!!

Last year I started "hosting" a Christmas elf in my classroom and could not wait to get started again this year. So, Snowflake came to class the Monday after Thanksgiving! We have really had a great time finding her. I have also found a lot of great resources to use with the kiddos and our elf.

If you read my previous post about our elf, you know that Snowflake came special delivery straight from the North Pole. Mrs. Scharwath, our next door neighbor, brought us our FREEZING cold package! She came wrapped and with a letter from Santa (that I found here)! To see more pictures of Snowflake and her antics, check out the class page of this blog.

During the month of December we will be writing in our Elf journals. (Great pack from A Cupcake for the Teacher: pack from TPT / blog)

Here are our first two days of journals. We started a little slow so that they could learn the procedure and are now able to do them all by themselves when they come in each morning!

Santa Clause!

This week we have been learning all about the legend of Santa Clause. Tuesday we went on a field trip to Wales West Light Railroad in Silverhill, Alabama. 

 We had molasses cookies and hot chocolate snack.

 We rode a mini train.

We rode a big coal train to Santa's "Alabama Workshop"!

 We met Santa and sat on his lap.

We ended the week with our Polar Express Party.

The fantastic After School Care teachers and students decorated the hall for our K-1 building!

Gingerbread Boys and Girls!

Last week we talked about the gingerbread! Gingerbread men, girls, babies, boys and houses.

 The kids disguised their Gingerbread boys and girls at home.

 We wrote about what we would look like, who we would run from, and what our house would look like if we were a gingerbread boy or girl. (worksheet here)

Friday we made and decorated our own gingerbread men. They were delicious!!!

Have you guys heard of Zulily? I just learned about it recently and it is FABULOUS!!!! I ordered the cutest embroidered crayon/doodle bags for my nieces for $10 each! I have ordered most of my other Christmas gifts for family and friends from this site as well and saved a ton of money. If you have not heard of this click the link (here) and check it out!!!! Most things I have ordered have been around 65% off. Sales differ each day! From their website: "zulily is a shopping destination for moms, offering daily discovery of new boutique items—all at an average of 50% off. Every day, 50-60 zulily sales launch, filled with hand-picked quality children’s apparel, women’s apparel, toys, infant gear and home décor. Unique finds from up-and-coming brands are featured alongside selections from top brands. Launched in 2010, zulily is headquartered in Seattle and has offices in London; Columbus, Ohio; and Reno, Nevada."

Only 4 more school days until Christmas Break!! I can't wait to see what everyone has been doing in class so link up with Doodlebugs and share!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Five for Friday

Here we are again! Another Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching and another week closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Time is flying by this year. I know I sure have been busy with starting a TPT store and starting this blog. I have also been working on implementing my AMSTI (Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative) training into my curriculum. This has meant a lot of video and audio recordings of my teaching and my students learning. So for #1...

AMSTI Math

 Roll and Record
Working on one to one correspondence, subtilizing, writing numbers, counting, composing numbers and more!!

Pattern Block Scarecrows

 Build It - number recognition, counting, composing numbers, ten frames

I have loved using the Terc Investigations math series along with my AMSTI training. It is all about being hands on and the kids taking ownership of their learning. We have learned a lot of different math games and the kiddos don't even realize how much learning is going on. 

AMSTI Science

Weather Unit: Thermometers & Temperature

Math and Science have always been my favorite subjects! So being able to get AMSTI science kits this year has been a dream come true. I was amazed at the learning that went on in my class during our weather kit. The work my kiddos did with thermometers blew my mind! Using talk moves during my lessons has made a huge difference. I was astounded to watch them work together sharing ideas until they figured out what a thermometer was and what it did. 

 My Last Post About Mamma Mia (at least for a year)!

WE WON!!! We took home first place in our food category and we were part of a three way tie for overall Mamma Mia Spirit!

 The theme for the entire night was Rificolona - a Paper Lantern Festival in Florence Italy where farmers and peasants sold their goods.

 Under the Tuscan Moon
Our team took that theme and ran with it! We decorated our booth as a booth at a 17th Century farmer's market and dressed the part! We cook Tuscan Pasta and Chickpea Soup and made Caprese salad bites (displayed on a head of lettuce).

Luckily we live in south Alabama where there are a lot of farming families! One of our teammates found the wagon, butter churn, and even an old scale (not in the picture) in her in-laws barn! 

 iCurio + Discovery Education = Learning in the Digital Renaissance

I know I have mentioned Discovery Education here before and shared with you how absolutely fabulous a resource it has been for me. If you don't know about DE check it out here! It has an array of wonderful multimedia resources and lessons.

Another great resource has been iCurio. This is another subscription site that our county has purchased for us. It is amazing. It is a resource where you can gather multimedia rich content aligned to both state and common core standards. From their website:

• Over 330,000 digital resources for all K-12 curriculum areas aligned with state and Common Core standards.
• Supports the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework.
• Flexible, dynamic content can easily be targeted to differentiate instruction for all students.
• Address learning outcomes for every class, every lesson, every student.
• Improve student engagement with videos, text, learning games, images, simulations, and more.

As a Kindergarten teacher and being new to this site, I use it to plan my lessons. There are links to amazing resources for everything. You can even save pages you find and share them with your grade level, school, or district. This week I found an entire unit on Pilgrims. We started with a Pilgrim scheme sheet (they love learning "5th grade" words), made a list of things we would pack if we moved to a new home, sorted those items into what the pilgrims could have brought on the Mayflower, and wrote about what it would have been like on the Mayflower. We are also going to create an ONLINE venn diagram comparing pilgrim children and children today. Next week we will focus on the first Thanksgiving. 

Click on Picture to visit ReadWriteThink.org to create your own online venn!

 On a personal note:

I LOVE Christmas. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love everything about Christmas!!!!! I love the wonderful church services reminding us of the Reason for The Season. I love the time spent with my family and friends. I love buying presents, especially for my two beautiful nieces. And I am absolutely giddy just thinking about decorating my home and classroom. I have a tradition, the day after Thanksgiving or that weekend, Christmas music plays, hot chocolate is drank, and the house is trimmed out in red and green!  I cannot wait for our class elf to arrive when we get back from Thanksgiving Break. I say all of this so you know I am not a scrooge when I say: Christmas in October and November has gone too far! What is going on????  In October,  I was looking for Halloween decorations but I couldn't find them for all the Christmas decorations. I lost most of my Thanksgiving decorations in a horrible attic accident (pic below) and could not find replacements because Christmas had invaded all of the shelves. I just think each holiday should be given the appropriate attention and not be used as a marketing tool. Each holiday has a special meaning to someone and should not be overlooked just to make a few extra dollars. 

Exiting soap box now! 

What have you been up to this week? Any great Thanksgiving or multimedia lessons to share?

Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and share!