Shades of Winter, Penguins, and The Perfect Snowman!

A shout out to my sweet co-worker Bonnie for making me the cutest, most delicious cupcake tree for my birthday!!!  The cupcakes were so delicious and creative!  I even got to keep the love bugs!!  Thanks so much for making my birthday SO special!!

The last three weeks have been a bit of a blur!  I have been so busy getting sick and having Parent/Teacher interviews.  I saw Hope King's The Ultimate Winter Writing Bundle and I knew I had to have it!  We have had a winter blast writing and creating!  I always am pleasantly surprised at the huge improvement my muffins show in their writing and overall abilities in general come January!!  YESSS!!!!  It is so great to see all of their creativity!!

My favourite activity, overall was learning about fact and opinion.  The idea was convince everyone else that their idea of the perfect snowman was the best.  Six years old and their creativity is through the roof!

"The perfect snowman is a turkey snowman.  It can get anything.  And it can run and it can jump and hide.  And it can flip (and) get scared.  It is random."

"The perfect snowman is a parachuting snowman. I could go flying with the snowman.  I could go on a family vacation without going on a plane because I could fly with the snowman."

"The best snowman is a melted snowman.  (The) melted snowman is the best snowman because it didn't last long."  Check it out below!  LOVE!  This art activity is SO super easy.  Get a huge packet of mini-marshmallows, white glue and chalk.  Direct the kiddos to draw their ideal snowman with chalk, glue marshmallows to make the snowman shape.  Add decorative details. It got some sparkly snowflake stickers from the craft store.  Voila!!

The classic snowman!!

All hail to the snow queen!

The best snowman is a melted snowman??  I so LOVE this!!

Meowtastic!  Watch out for the abominable cat snowman!!  So cute!!

I cannot believe it is February but I am looking forward to all the fun of Valentine's Day, Jump Rope for Heart, a couple of field trips and the 100th Day of School!  Happy teaching!!

It's a New Year, It's a New Post, It's 2013!...and a Freebie

Happy New Year bloggy friends!!  My class was super busy this last week as we transitioned into the new year.  We had fun creating goals for ourselves and celebrating what we are good at!  I gave my kiddos mirrors and had them draw their determined face!  They were super excited about writing their names in fancy letters with as many curly cues as they wanted:)

Here is a 2013 Goals freebie for you to use!  Happy New Year friends!  So glad and grateful for the blogging world!!

They had fun playing a couple of 1 more, 1 less, 2 more, 2 less, 10 more, 10 less year games.  Each player has a game board of years.  Players take turns uncovering years covered by counters and finding years on either of their game boards that are more or less.  These muffins are looking for years that are 1 less!

Also, we talked about forces, touching on gravity and friction with a New Year's Eve ball drop activity.  The kids loved watching the "ball"/bead drop down the straw coated with different materials (oil, hand lotion, flour, oil, hand sanitizer, dish soap, syrup etc.)  The little scientists in the making did a nice bar graph prediction before we experimented to predict what material would work the best!

Who knew hand lotion would allow the ball to drop at the perfect speed?

You can check all these activities out and more in my New Year's packet!

This is one of my favourite January art activities that I have been doing with my class for quite a few years now!  These city snow scenes are so easy and the kids get so creative!  Just cut up a bunch of different coloured construction paper.  Instruct your muffins to make sure each building is right next door to one another and to leave a space for the road/sidewalk at the bottom.  Have them add black windows to each building and encourage creativity!  They always impress me!

I got this idea from a great arts and crafts book called:

Happy Sunday!  I am off for a cross-country ski!!  It is looking nice and sunny out there!! Yippee!!

Around the World Wednesday - International Bloggy Linky Party

I was so excited to see a linky party for bloggers outside the U.S.  It is nice to connect to other bloggers - Canada especially!  Thanks to Michelle from Making It is a Middle School Teacher.

Here are a few of my Canadian content products including my TpT freebie!!  Click below, check them out and follow my store and Like me on Facebook, eh!

I'm looking forward to see everyone else's blogs as they link up!!!  Thanks Michelle for connecting us all!!

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:)!