{First Grade} Holiday Literacy Center

Hey, y'all!  We're doing a Grinch/Reindeer Unit next week to finish up the holidays, but in case you wanted a little preview of what we're doing (or need an idea for a holiday lit center!), I thought I'd post one activity I'll include in our literacy centers.

Santa Sentences

You can find specific directions here. 

In this activity, there are 5 pre-made sentences.  Teachers will cut/laminate the pieces for each sentence and the student will arrange them in a meaninful order.  Afterwards, students will write the sentence on the recording sheet and respond to the question that is asked.  You can find the pieces here and the recording sheet here. 

I hope you can use this activity!  Please let me know if you're not able to view the links :)

Avoidance.

Everything in my being is telling me to eat the Dilly Bar that is taunting me from the freezer right now. 

Dilly bar.  Dilly bar.  Dilly bar.

But, honestly, I'm experiencing a little post-Thanksgiving jelly belly, so I'm really trying to resist.  Mostly by blogging through the urge :)

Okay, so anyway, I'm fairly certain that my 2-year-old could full well recite the entire 25 minutes that is A Charlie Brown Christmas. Because we watch it EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And, despite the fact that I could recite the entire letter to Santa that Charlie scribes for his sister, I do enjoy the fact that Becks will cozy up to me on the couch and watch it. Because snuggles from my boy are a rarity these days.

{Becks dancing with the Peanuts gang.  Kid's got moves.}

He's totally into pretend play with blocks and his train set.  I love watching him entertain himself and make up little conversations between him and his toys.  I catch bits and pieces, which are often incoherent to me but I'm sure make perfect sense to him.  It's precious and one of the best parts of watching him grow up.  {And, from the teacher perspective - a developmental milestone :) }

I tried to catch a picture of him in the act, and captured a little snapshot of our lives right now: the holiday decor looming and poor B snoozing pitifully in the background.  He had a Spanish presentation this morning and pulled an all-nighter last night.  We both have finals next week and I think that we're both extremely ready for a much-needed break from school.  I love my 1st grade chickadees dearly, but they're making me feel a tad loopy lately with their contagious excitement for the season.  And by contagious excitement, what I really mean is incessant talking and inability to remain still for longer than a millisecond. 

They kind of make me feel like, hmmmm, a crazy reindeer? 

{Thanks to Becks for snapping this pic.}

And, by the way, I did not eat the Dilly Bar.  Yet.

Random Monday Musings

1.  I am feeling really good about life today.  Apparently, a festive interior, a Christmas Eve scented Yankee candle burning much of the day, and the last 2 weeks of the school year winding down will bring out the holiday spirit in a person.  It helps that I finished lesson planning for the remainder of 2010 today, too :)

2.  I had breakfast for dinner tonight at my parents house and it was totally YUM.

3.  We went to our first holiday party over the weekend at our neighbor's house.  So fun. 

Me, Brian (host), and Lauren (neighbor and sorority sis) 

B and Eric (Lauren's bf)

4.  How amazingly talented are the singers on The Sing Off ?!  Omigosh.  Love it.  And can you be any more cleverly named than "Pitch Slapped?"  Ha! 

5.  Beckham went to bed tonight with very little fanfare.  He's all into this "Just one more story...." or "Just one more minute..."  which usually turns into a nightly sob-a-thon when we deny his requests.  Tonight though, he was perfect.  Please, stop what you're doing, and knock on wood on my behalf.

6.  We snapped our Christmas picture this weekend, and - if I do say so myself - it turned out super cute!  This isn't the pic that we chose, but a cute one nonetheless. 

7.  Let's talk about how I just had to purchase storage space on Google so I can upload pics to the blog!  It was only five bucks for 20 GBs, but still! Has this happened to anyone else?

8.  Someone is nearing the end of her 20s.  I turn 28 in 17 days.  GULP. 

9.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to be starting a school-related blog here in the near future.  FYI.

10.  Please wear your pajamas inside out, do a dance, or just send your winter weather my way: I WANT A SNOWDAY.  Thanks and have a happy Monday :)

Holiday Cards from Shutterfly

Considering how behind at life I am right now, it should come as no surprise that up until last night I hadn't even considered our family Christmas card, let alone snapped a cute pic of all of us.  But now we have, and, honestly, that wasn't the hard part.  Becks actually cooperated and our pic turned out cute!  Getting a 2-year-old to smile on cue is no small feat.

The hard part is choosing from the gazillion adorable Christmas Photo Cards at Shutterfly.  OMIWORD, I don't even now which one is my favorite!  I have, well, a gazillion favorites!  Topping my list are the following designs...

Holiday Love Sketch  5X7 folded card
I love the vivid red and the fun font!

Celebrate Family Christmas Card

How cute are the colors?!  LOVE!

With Glee Christmas 5x& photo card

Again, the font is what gets me!  I'm a sucker for cute writing!

I have actually been a member of Shutterfly for years and own many of their products.  They are an amazing company with a quick turnaround time.  It's been my experience that the purchase usually arrives within a week, and sometimes as short as a few days!  So, if you're anything like me {impatient}, you'll appreciate the fact that your product arrives promptly. 

I own several Shutterfly-made photo books, and have ordered calendars from them also (a great gift idea by the way!).  I couldn't be happier with the quality and the ease in which you can create/order your product in their user-friendly website.  And, if you're in the market for birthday invitations, you must check them out.  Super cute products! 

To any other bloggers who haven't taken advantage of Shutterfly's promotion, go here for more information!  I'm being gifted 50 free cards from Shutterfly for writing and submitting this post.  For something I was going to do anyway, I just couldn't resist!  The promotion runs until the 15th, so there's still time left for any slackers one like me who hasn't ordered any yet :)

Saturday Morning Funny

We made Santas yesterday, and - as always - first graders come up with some of the most creative and inspiring art pieces.  

And then I came across Lacy's.

Apparently, Santa's beard is really really innapropriately misplaced long this year.  At least that's what we're going with so I don't have to break out a a censor bar in order to display him in the hallway...

And that seemed to be only the beginning of his problems.  The head, for one, and the lack of feet were also an issue.  But, hey, it's artwork and completely personal. 

Here are some other students' pieces for comparison purposes. 

Hope you had a little chuckle this morning.  My teacher friends and I thought it was pretty funny!

Gingerbread Unit Activities for First Grade

Hello, teachery friends!  I just thought I'd interject my normal posts with some holiday themed activities we did this past week...

Our focus skill in reading this week was comparing and contrasting, so this unit went great with our reading series.  I made this large graphic organizer that we added to throughout the week as we read different stories.  Unfortunately, my printer wasn't working, so the book covers I printed aren't in color...and my handwriting is super sloppy (major pet peeve of mine!). 

We had a gingerbread taste-test (I just bought Keebler Gingerbread Men from Kroger) and we graphed our results.   I also had the kids complete speech bubbles with their responses to the flavor.   Afterwards, we discussed adjectives and completed a whole-group graphic organizer describing the gingerbread men.

My favorite activity was decorating the crafty gingerbread boys/girls.  I collected a bunch of craft supplies (odds and ends from The Dollar Tree, mostly) and let the kiddos have it!  I love their creativity.  Afterwards, they wrote about their gingerbread person.  They turned out darling :)



Today, we observed what would happen if the gingerbread man had gotten wet.  The kids loved touching the soggy cookie and many asked if they could EAT it!  YUCK!  You can find a printable for this activity here: Gingerbread Science. 

I also made up several gingerbread-themed activities for our literacy centers.  You can get the printables here: Gingerbread Literacy Activities. 

Here's how I used the activities:

You can use the first one for a variety of things, but since we were working on beginning s- blends this week, I wrote an s- blend on the right hand and the word ending on the other.  The kids then had to say, spell, and write (with a vis-a-vis marker) the word on the center of the laminated  "gingerbear."

The second activity is a sticker story.  I gave the kids a variety of stickers to make a story rebus-style about the gingerbread man. 

The third and fourth worksheet go together and are self-explanatory (draw and write about a gingerbread man).

The fifth activity is a spin-off of "write-the-room." I hid 10 numbered gingerbread men throughout the room and the kids had to search for them and then write down their location next to the right number. 

Tomorrow, my cafeteria has generously offered to bake gingerbread men for us to decorate - as if my kiddos need any more sugar reason to be wound up on a Friday! 

I hope these are helpful to some of you out there!  I now how much fun it can be to scramble for activities/units/worksheets!  Feel free to use them and alter them if need be :)

{PS.  I've never used Google Docs before, so if you have trouble with anything just holler!}

Sharing Secrets...

Here are some silly secrets...

- I secretly keep one pacifier in my coat pocket, despite the fact that Becks hasn't taken one in a

month now. I'm holding onto it as a last little sentiment of my no-longer baby.

- I secretly fear that our computer is going to die any day.  And I haven't backed up one picture or file.  There are thousands of pictures saved to our harddrive, and more school-related documents than I'd care to imagine.

-  I secretly miss the drama of The Hills, Jersey Shore, and Teen Mom. 16 and Pregnant just isn't cutting it for me this season.

-  I secretly want another pair of Uggs for Christmas.  Grey, knit ones with buttons.

-  I secretly have the desire to move.  Which totally isn't going to happen.  But I shop real estate frequently.

-  I secretly have an extremely messy desk at school, usually piled a foot high with paperwork.  Somedays, when it gets really bad, I just toss the whole stack and pray that I didn't throw away anything important.

-  I secretly am longing for a snow day. 

-  I secretly hate getting ready.  Showering, putting on makeup, fixing my hair = a wasted hour.

-  I secretly have a gobzillion eyeshadows and use about 5 of them on a regular basis.  I save them for the what-ifs.  What if I buy a lime green ______ and need lime green eyeshadow to match?

-  I secretly am a major grad school slacker.  Other things take precedence. 

-  I secretly ate four left-over empanadas today.  2 for lunch, 2 for dinner.  Yum.

-  I secretly am sick of typing the word secretly.  I've said it so much in my head, it's starting to not sound like a real word anymore!

Any secrets you want to share  today?