One Week until Winter Break!! 

Reindeer Ramble, Charlie the Ranch Dog, and paper trees!

     Can you believe how fast this year has gone??  The older I get, the faster time goes!!  I love this time of the year and can even deal with a little of the "crazies" the kiddos get as it gets closer to Christmas, class parties, and fun assemblies!  We were busy last week learning about reindeer- both fiction and non fiction.  The kids LOVED making these reindeer headbands and they wore them as they did a fun little "Reindeer Ramble" scoot around the classroom and out into the hallway as well!

The Reindeer Ramble "scoot" activity has 26 cards and covers all subject areas.  I loved watching how my kids wanted to help each other and talk out the answers as they went along with their clipboards!

Reindeer Ramble Activity!

 I have made the headbands a FREEBIE for you!  These are the templates that come free for you and your class.  My kids really liked giving their reindeers sunglasses, mustaches, and hair bows too!  Add a little red glitter to the noses and ta-da!!!

                                                                         

    Here is the headband FREEBIE if you are interested!  I would love for you to grab it and let me know what you think!

FREEBIE!

                

                        OK-- Who else has fallen in LOVE with Charlie the Ranch Dog books by Ree Drummond- AKA "The Pioneer Lady?"  

Charlie is her adorable basset hound who tells stories about his life on her ranch.  His personality is precious!  He's a bit lazy but is definitely the king of the ranch.  My students have begged for me to re-read all of the books.  The cool thing is there's one for Christmas called Charlie and the Christmas Kitty.  

This was perfect for my bulletin board.  I attempted to draw Charlie as good as the illustrator, Diane deGroat and then made a Charlie dog paper holder template. The kids wrote paragraphs about Charlie's traits!  I will be making a CHARLIE unit soon and will be sure to post it and more about him here on my blog!!

Each of the Charlie books have a recipe from Ree Drummond in the back of the books.  Here is a picture of us eating the Christmas cookie recipe cookies after the kids used a dog bone cookie cutter.  My awesome assistant is a wonderful cook!  She made the homemade icing and we decorated with sprinkles. :)

I fell in love with this easy tree craft I found on Pinterest.  They used colorful ribbon to glue to cardboard triangles.  I just cut large triangles on green paper.  My assistant cut long thin strips of various greens, turquoise, and even a little red from construction paper.

 The kids then covered their triangles on one side with glue from their glue sticks.  Then, starting at the base of the triangle, they stuck the thin strips up their trees.

Finally, they turned their tree over and trimmed it up the triangle sides to cut off the hanging strips!  I said they were giving their trees a "haircut" and they thought that was funny. :)  The little things, right?

We added sticks to the back of the trees and they looked GREAT!

Here is the Pinterest link to the craft!

Pinterest Ribbon Trees

I hope that everyone has a great rest of your weekend and can enjoy all the fun leading up to the holidays!  I plan to do more reindeer activities using this cool interactive reindeer unit I found from Teach 123-Michelle called "Reindeer Facts and More."   

Reindeer Facts and More

We will have our Winter party on Thursday and we have lots of fun learning planned.  Next Friday will be here before we know it and then off for 2 weeks!  Woo hoo!!!

Next up for me will be my Gingerbread Baby unit!  The kids LOVED it last year and it makes an adorable hallway display!

Gingerbread Baby Unit!

Turkey Work-ey! 

My students have been hard at work writing letters as turkeys who have run away for Thanksgiving!

We have also been working on nouns and adjectives.  This worksheet helped me explain how to figure out the difference between the words.  We practiced by locating the noun, "turkey."  Each time they read a word, I asked them to say it in front of the word, "turkey."  So, we discussed how "wing turkey" does not make sense but "plump turkey" does.  Therefore, "wing" is another noun and "plump" is an adjective describing "turkey!"

These center cards were a fun way to review coin recognition and value for my 1st graders.  The two worksheets from the preview pic below go nicely with the matching game!

We used this worksheet to make sentences by learning how you must have a "who or what" and an "action" to make a sentence.  My kiddos had fun writing and drawing pictures to match their sentences!

Here is the unit that all of these activities come from-- if you are interested in turkey themed learning fun this week or next!

 

TURKEY Learning Unit!!

I used the book called A Plump and Perky Turkey for lots of fun fiction learning as well with my students!

A Plump and Perky Turkey Comprehension Unit!

We took a field trip to The Living Arts and Science Center here in Lexington, KY.  We had so much fun with the color and light theme they used and seeing all of their cool critters!

Butterflies, axolotls, and chameleons, oh my!

Next week, our class Thanksgiving Feast and learning about the first Thanksgiving!!

Have a great weekend!

Inference Investigators

Inference Investigators!

I have been so excited to use this unit with my first graders!  It seems that discussing and teaching the "Inference" strategy is not always the easiest concept with young primary students.  The unit uses a detective theme to help students realize that using past knowledge and clues from their reading will help make them use good inferencing skills!

To get started, the kids made their own "Top Secret" file folders to hold their inference work.

At whole group time, I used the "What is it?" cards to discuss using clues from reading to solve the "What is it?" mystery.  All you need is post it notes to cover the picture!  They loved helping me read the clues and giving answers.  Talking through possible answers is such a good way for little minds to learn!

After practicing the "What is it?" cards, I used these "What am I?" cards in reading circles and then put them into a center to practice with friends.           

"Secret Squares" was their favorite lesson from the unit!  Each student chose a picture to "hide" with their secret square and they wrote clues on each flap. We shared them whole group and they loved reading their clues and seeing if their classmates could solve the mystery before the whole picture was revealed!

One of my favorite lessons in the unit is the "Finding Clues and Taking Notes" worksheets.  I did a few of these whole group and then let the kids try in reading circles.  They really love using a highlighter to POP out the clues and write their notes.

Finally, the kids made their own "Inference Investigators/Detectives" and wrote their own "What am I ?" clues for an object.  They each got a post it to cover the answer and we hung these out in the hallway to display our hard work as inference investigators!  


If you like what you see, the unit is at my TPT store!

INFERENCE INVESTIGATORS

Have a GREAT week!!