Best and Brightest Linky Party

It's time for a New Year's Linky Party!  Time to celebrate 2012's best and brightest blog achievements!!  Click below to link up with Christina from Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge.

Most Popular Post and Freebie: 

I Heard Mr. Turkey Say, "Gobble, gobble, gobble...time for a Thanksgiving freebie!"

I think everyone liked the turkey feather template!!!

Most Loved by Me Post: 

Panda Bears, Polar Bears, and Grizzly Bears, Oh My!

The reason I like this post the most is because of the creativity of my kids!  They make me laugh!!!  Check it out for a chuckle!

Products I am most proud of:

Here is my little Remembrance Day product for helping your little ones learn to get along and resolve problems in 5 easy steps.

This is my packet of 10 math centers for learning about the equal sign!  My kiddos had such a blast playing these games.

Last, but not least, is my beginning of the year back to school packet!  This is such an important time of year and I hope you find that the activities match!

My Favourite Blogs:

Reagan Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits is one of my favourite blogs.  She is so creative, inspiring, and generous.  Her ideas keep me going and excited about trying them at school!

Cara Carroll's The First Grade Parade is such a work of art and love.  Her ideas are wonderful, teacher friendly, and most important, kid friendly!  

Happy New Year blogging friends!  All the best for 2013!!  My lucky number is 13 so I am sending out peace and positive thoughts for many blessings on you all!

Reindeer Food, Grinch Day, and Our Christmas Concert

So I got this as a freebie from Reagan Tunstall again over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits!!  LOVE!!  First, we read the recipe and I made one baggy of reindeer food as an example.  The kids helped me write and sound out the directions.

While the kiddos were writing out their own instructions...

...two at a time were coming up to the reindeer food making station.  The quiet workers got to go first!! This provided real incentive!

 

The kids loved this activity and a few even tried the reindeer food themselves!!!

 

The next day was Grinch Day!  Here is our HEALTHY Grinch Day food!!!  No sugary treats on Grinch Day for us!!  And oddly enough, my kids LOVED it, were quite content with fruit and veggies and there was no sugar crash!!!  LOVE!!!!   Also, check out the cute veggie Christmas tree!!!

Here is my Grinch Day hairdo - not sure if you can see the little mini hat I found that I saved from a Christmas planter from last year.  I'm sure it looked better in person though!!! :$  You can't tell but there is an empty toilet roll hidden under some of my hair! Ha!

Here is my little crew practicing with their maracas for the Christmas concert.  We sang a lullaby and The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy reggae style!  They were amazing.  It is so incredible what 6 year olds can do when you give them the reins.  I told them to line up from tallest to smallest and get into their lines on stage.  They did it every time with very little direction from me!!  So capable and smart!!!

Afterwards, we had hot chocolate and cookies and I caught them all toasting each other!!!  SO  CUTE!!

Merry Christmas friends!!  May peace and joy be yours this Christmas!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland of Sounds...and a Freebie

I always kind of dread the change from warm to cold.  Then I start to adjust and I love the cool nights for sleeping.  Eventually, I remember how I love to ski and I CAN'T wait!!  Here is a little winter wonderland for you to enjoy!

I thought I would make a weeks worth of word work for my muffins focusing on word families.  I came up with a little booklet.  Each child gets a word family to work on.  They pick sounds from the Sound Garden, crossing them out as they test to see which letter sounds at the beginning will create words!  It took a few days but now my sweethearts are right into it, creating word families left, right and center!!  So proud!!!

Check out my little booklet as well as a second booklet focusing on beginning blends!  The Sound Garden is still there - just with different sounds to choose from!

Also, this week, I had to sneak in this activity last minute - I realized I was in charge of decorating a window in the hall that leads to the gym where our Christmas concert will be held.  Thank goodness I had it prepared - it worked out quite nicely - I worked with half the class while the other half were making Christmas present crafts with some creative parents!  We started by reading The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg.

Then, we used a Q-tip and white glue to trace and glitter "esus".

Next, we added a candy cane made from pipe cleaners as the "J" in Jesus!

I cut them out and put them up surrounding the poem below.  Click below for this little freebie template and The Legend of the Candy Cane poem!  

Happy week before Christmas blogging friends!!!  May you stay healthy and sane:)!

Bring Your Bear to School Week and a Freebie Art Activity

It was Bring Your Bear to School week!  My muffins had a blast.  We started out the week by reading The Teddy Bears' Picnic.  This is such a fun book to sing - I always find it a bit creepy...but in a good way:D

We had a little teddy bear picnic and we counted our snacks by 2's, 5's, and 10's.

Also, we measured our stuffy with blocks and paper clips.  We weighed our stuffies with scales!

 During our writing block we reviewed nouns, verbs and adjectives with a little stuffy photo album...

You can get all these stuffy activities and more in my Bring Your Stuffy to School pack!  Click here!

Today we made pudding bears.  This is probably one of the most fun and tasty activities ever!  Each kiddo gets a bear outline, a pudding cup, and a spoon.  

1. Rip off lid.

2. Lick lid.

3. Spread 2 scoops of pudding over bear.

4. Decorate with pompoms, buttons and googly eyes!

5. Eat the rest of your pudding.  Yummy in my tummy!  I sure enoyed this demo:)

Get your freebie outline template HERE.

Cyber Monday Bonus Tuesday Sale!!!

Happy weekend to those Canadian teachers bloggers out there!!!  American teacher bloggers - I hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving week and are enjoying the weekend!  I don't know about you but I am so happy for this weekend!!  I definitely need a rest!!  We had our 50th day of school this week, as well as a porridge making day to help celebrate our Goldilocks and the Three Bears week!

This little freebie is courtesy of Latoya Reed!  Thanks!!

This is from Cara Carroll's 50th Day of School Unit - so amazing!!!

Check out my TpT store for an amazing sale this Cyber Monday and get 20% off all my products!!  Use the promo code below and get an extra 8% off!!!

Panda Bears, Polar Bears, and Grizzly Bears, Oh my!

Oh my!!!  We have been having a wonderful week in my little class.  They made me laugh so hard today!!  Love their personalities!  I am so grateful for a less busy week without interruptions.  My Smart Board is still on the fritz - that is one thing I could ask for - no more technology problems - it works for about 10 minutes and then shuts off.  To make matters worse my mouse started behaving strangely...  It is amazing how much we rely on technology!

We started off the week with a little discussion of the basic needs of bears!  Click on below for a little freebie!

Then, we did a little compare and contrast between grizzly and polar bears.  Love that critical thinking!

Here is an example of what one of my little tykes wrote!

So as we continue our study of bears we made our Polar Bear tear art today.  it is always SO cute to see the look of terror when they hear they have to tear and not cut!!!  What do you MEAN!! I don't use SCISSORS!!!  She has LOST her mind!!!   It's art my friends!!!  Crazy, creative art like these bears always makes me laugh!

Check out the detail on this cute bear!

This bear is sitting on his tush although I am told he is actually standing and growling:) 

At first glance, one would think this bear was flying.  I'm told this bear is about to attack a human, complete with sound effects!  Oh my!!  LOL!

Introducing the poised and thoughtful bear.  You need seal?  Oh, just over here good sir!

Levitation bears are so cute and there is always more than one:)

Bear on the edge!!

Bear on the edge of glory!

 This art project is super easy.  All you need is blue construction paper, white computer paper, and glue!  You may want to give them each a cotton ball to add a little fur:)  Have a beary good week!!!