Awesome Giveaway

Check out this giveaway from 2nd Grade Pad. It is her one year blogiversary and she is giving away her whole store!  Hop on over and check her out!

A New Look

As you can see, I am working on the look of my blog.  I am very new to the blogging world and I am learning the ends and outs of it.  Please bare with me while I work on my look!  I actually am really enjoying learning about all the different things you can do.  I really want to thank Dani over at Blog Designs by Dani for her great step by step instructions!  Wow!  If you are having issues, I really suggest popping over to see her.

Can't resist.......

We had so much fun creating our own settings for our Gingerbread characters that I couldn't resist sharing some of our photos.  I also attached one of our cards (below) that we made as part of our Random Acts of Classroom Kindness.  This particular photo was a card left for our dear clinic ladies to thank them for keeping us all healthy and making our boo boos feel better!  Every person we "RACK" gets a card posted on the door so others will know we have been there!  The kiddos have had a blast spreading their holiday kindness this way.  You can get the whole activity by going to RACK Activity

Blog Contest!

I found a blog contest that can win you a $25.00 gift card to TpT!  All you have to do is go to Christmas Give Away Raffle at Teaching Maths With Meaning and enter to win!

So sad.......

My heart and prayers go out to all of the families involved in this tragedy.  So senseless.............

New Freebies!!!!

I have added two great new Freebies.  Check them out by clicking the "Freebie" tab.  Enjoy!

RACK

Day one and two of my RACK project are in full swing.  The kids are LOVING it!  So far they have had to invite someone they haven't played with to play with them and write thank you Holiday Cards to our Soliders.  I will post a picture of my Rack cards in use along with a picture of the cards they have written so far.  I am so glad that they are learning to give when so many are stuck on the "get"!

Christmas/Holiday Units and Games

Here are a few items in my TpT store geared towards the holidays. There are a few more if you want to visit my store. Merry Christmas!
Nonfiction "Where Do Christmas Trees Come From" Literacy and Math unit

Gingerbread Man Ryhme Emergent Reader

How Many Santa's? - Math Games

Random Acts of Classroom Kindness

We finished!!

This is the final product of my gingerbread unit! The kiddos did great and LOVED every minute of it!  Here are photos of the completed activities.  (Our theme for the whole school is an "Underwater Learning Adventure" that's why our Gingerbread girls and boys are going for a swim!)

Gingerbread Writing

In addition to all of our Gingerbread Reading, we are writing expository stories about how we would eat a gingerbread man.  I am sooooo excited to see my kiddos faces when I surprise them with the actual cookies tomorrow!  Not my best baking but they did turn out cute anyways!  We are going to make a web of describing words that we can use in our writing, then make a plan for which parts we would eat 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  Finally we will put it in writing.  I know they are just going to LOVE this!

As promised, here is a photo of our "work in progress" gingerbread unit.  The kiddos love adding their thoughts as we go. The end product will have their writing responses and gingerbread glyphs included.  I will post that when it is complete!

Gingerbread Unit

My Gingerbread unit is under full swing.  Right now we are comparing several different gingerbread stories.  We have made a huge gingerbread story map and hung it in the hallway to keep track of our thinking. The kids love coming out to the "house" to write on the wall. (Not to mention it is really helpful for my PT/ OT kiddos who need to build some more strength in their arm/hand muscles!) I will post a picture of it tomorrow.  This year I bought "A Yummy Batch of Gingerbread Math" by Caitlin (Kindergarten Smiles) on TpT.  It went along PERFECTLY with my literacy unit!  Thanks Caitlin.
You can take a peek at her unit here: Yummy Batch of Gingerbread Math

I also found a new way to make gingerbread houses this year.  Instead of saving ,cleaning, and taping together all those milk cartons, I am going to use square Rice Krispie treats!  I found the idea on Pinteret and immediately thought, "Yay!!! We can eat the whole thing!" They will LOVE it I am sure.
How cute are they????? I am so excited!