Sunday, December 19, 2010

CSN Giveaway Winner

Right in time for holiday shopping! Thanks to everyone who stopped by CSN Stores to take a look around at all their goodies. Now onto the lucky winner of the $20 CSN Stores gift card…

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I will contact you with details! If I don’t hear back from the winner within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen at random. Thanks for playing!!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

It’s A {CSN} Christmas Giveaway!

And what teacher doesn’t LOVE something FREE?!?!?! HA!!! So true though, right?! Well teacher friends, here’s your chance to win a $20 gift card to CSN Stores. You can grab a little something fun like this briefcase…

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OR…you could head on over to Toys & Games Online and add to your ever growing collection of classroom games. Here are a few things I know my kids would ADORE..

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FUN, right?!?!?

SO…what are you waiting for?! Get your name on the giveaway list today! Here’s how to enter…

MANDATORY ENTRY:

Stop by CSN Stores, come back to my blog, and leave a comment telling me how you’ll spend the $20 if you’re the lucky winner {1 entry}

EXTRA ENTRIES

Become a follower of Emilyk Cole {1 entry}

Become a fan of CSN Stores on FB {1 entry}

Follow CSN Stores on Twitter {1 entry}

Blog OR post about this giveaway on FB and leave me a comment with the link {2 entries}

REMEMBER TO LEAVE A COMMENT FOR EACH ENTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So there ya have it…6 chances to win if you’re a real go-getter ;)

The giveaway ends on Friday at 12:00AM CST. Don’t be late! And don’t forget to leave a valid email address so that I can contact you if you win! If the winner doesn’t contact me within 48hrs, a new winner will be chosen at random.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!

***You can also head over to my domestic blog for a chance to win a $55 CSN Stores gift card :)**

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Reindeer Games

I feel like the 3 weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas break are so RUSHED! Not that I’m complaining…I LOVE breaks :)…but there’s always so much I want to fit in in such a short amount of time! Last week we started learning about reindeer. Before we continue on with more reindeer fun this week, I wanted to start with some non-fiction reading and fact gathering, so that’s just what we did!

We started out by reading this non-fiction book about reindeer…

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I love reading non-fiction books because my kids just eat it up! They’re SO engaged when it comes to learning new facts. Plus, it gives me a chance to teach them about the table of contents, index, vocabulary, etc. At the end of each chapter, we stop to jot facts. We started with a KWL, and it was so fun to see what they thought they knew about reindeer {they live in the North Pole, they fly, they only eat carrots :)} After we gathered all of our “What I Learned” facts, we organized them onto our Reindeer fact chart.

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The kids used the fact chart for some independent writing. They had to choose three facts to write about and then make their own reindeer.

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We also organized our thoughts onto a tree map and used it to sort nouns/verbs/adjectives. I used a great little printable from Deanna Jump’s Reindeer Unit for the kids to create their own tree map. There are LOTS of great ideas in that unit!!!!

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We’ll do a few more little reindeer activities this week and then get ourselves ready for a BREAK!!! Can’t wait!!!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Happy Grinch Day!

Happy Grinch Day, friends!!

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Here’s my sweet team all decked out in our Grinch Day duds. We celebrated “Grinch Day” today and the kids got in on all the fun, too!! They came dressed in green and some of our little cuties even painted their faces and sported Cindy Lou’s hairstyle. TOO cute!

Of course, we started out the day by reading the book…

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Then we brainstormed a list of adjectives to describe the Grinch…

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{I tried my best to draw him, but not so sure I did him justice. And please excuse the handwriting!} Not so sure that “teethy” is a word, but my little sweetie who offered it up was just certain that it is!!! She INSISTED we include it :)

We also brainstormed a list of adjectives to describe the Grinch’s heart {at the beginning of the story}

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Then I had the kids write similes comparing the Grinch and his heart to different things using the prompt, “The Grinch was as __________ as _________. His heart was as _________ as _________.” They had to choose adjectives from our brainstorm charts and make up their own similes. They LOVED this activity!!

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“The Grinch was as green as grass. His heart was as small as a mouse.”

The kids also did this cute little writing activity. "I would make a Grinch grin by….” Their responses were so clever!!! Here are a few of my favorites! {Even though a couple are missing their noses…}

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Handwriting, letter formation, and spelling are still a work in progress :)

Deanna Jump has an AWESOME Grinch mini-unit and we incorporated lots of her activities into our fun filled day as well!!! Go and grab your copy NOW!!

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At the end of the day, I passed out “Grinch-licked” candy canes to all the kids along with these fun little tags I made. They were SUCH a HIT!!!!

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You can download the tags HERE.

There are lots of activities we didn’t get around to, but hopefully we can fit them in, soon…or maybe next year!!! Here are just a few…

**Write about why you think the Grinch hated Christmas…

**The Grinch is all about the JOY of Christmas. Spell out the word JOY in big bubble letters. Draw a picture of yourself in the center of the “O”…or glue a picture of yourself inside. Fill the bubble letters up with words of things that bring you joy.

**Write a Grinch How-To {How to be a Grinch}

**Another simile activity… “The Grinch’s heart grew to be as big as a ________.”

**Create a class book – “Mr. Grinch, Please Don’t Steal Our Stuff!”. The kids complete the sentence prompt, “Mr. Grinch, please don’t steal my _________.” and illustrate their writing.

**If you don’t like the candy cane idea, pass out “Grinch Dust” to the kids. Fill a baggie with green sprinkles and attach this poem…

TO make sure the Grinch doesn’t steal your Christmas, you have to stay on guard. Before going to bed on Christmas Eve, sprinkle this Grinch Dust in your yard. The Grinch will see your magic dust and know you’ve taken care. To protect your home & family and keep Christmas joy in the air!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

If Take A Mouse To The Movies

One of my favorite holiday books…

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And there’s SO much you can do with it! We had a little “If You Take A Mouse To The Movies” day the other day and the kids had so much fun!! Of course, we started out reading the book. After reading, we talked about cause & effect and made a diagram to show the chain of reaction.mousetomovies5

I also assigned each kiddo to a story event and had them illustrate it. Then we came together as a whole group and I had the kids work together to sequence the events on a giant filmstrip!

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I really wanted a text to self writing activity, so I gave them the prompt, “If you take me to the movies, I will ask you for some…”. I had them complete the sentence with the words of things they like to get when they go to the movies! And these little writing templates turned out so dang cute! It took me FOREVER to figure out how I wanted to display their writing, but the idea of a festive little Christmas mouse and a clapboard won out in the end! I LOVE how different each of them look! {Just incase you’re wondering…I precut all of the big pieces…clapboard pieces, head, hands, hat, ears} AFTER they were finished writing…and after I double checked it…I let the kids grab their materials to start assembling their little mice. They cut their own eyes & nose & drew the whiskers, too!

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I pretty much died when I saw that this sweetie wrote, “popcorn and a cup of iced tea.” HA!!!

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For our Daily 5 stations, I had the kids work on a few little mouse themed activities.

Here the kids are sorting chunk words {-oke, –ose, –ore} on popcorn into the corresponding popcorn tubs. After they sorted the words, the kids had to write them onto a large popcorn tub template and label it accordingly.

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I also had the kids make CVC words using little clapboards and flimstrip letters.

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The first slide/page in this download are hand drawn pictures {by yours truly ;)} that I used when I taught Kindergarten. I made rebus sentences out of them. {He will ask you for some…} The kids had to match the words to the pics.

Of course, I didn’t get around to everything I wanted to do. No shocker there. But some other ideas I had were to…

**have the kids create popcorn garland for the class tree. Cut out construction paper popcorn pieces {or print some off} and have the kids make words/fact families/etc. on each template, hole punch the top, and then string them together with yarn.

**make filmstrip sentences. I thought it would be fun to have large, premade filmstrip pieces and on each strip, write a different word. The kids would have to work together to put the sentence in order.

Do you guys do anything fun with this book?!? I’d love for you to share if you do!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town

I have a thing for Santas. I really do. I have a HUGE collection here at the house and I just can’t get enough of him! He’s so dang cute! SO…it would only stand to reason that I’d want to include a few Santa activities in the classroom as well :) I know that a lot of kids don’t celebrate Christmas, but this year EVERY single one of my kiddos does…so that makes planning a little bit easier for me. However, this hasn’t always been the case! I guess you could say I’m taking advantage of it this year :)

I read a book about Santa the other day…can’t remember which one…and had the kids make these cute little scrapbook Santas after we read the story. I LOVE how different they all turned out! And I swear each one of them represents the kids’ personalities to a T!!! SO cute!

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Have you ever read the story, A New Improved Santa?!?!

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I haven’t read this to my kids yet, but it’s DARLING! It’s all about Santa & how he feels like he’s losing his “edge”, so he tries out a bunch of different styles…spiky hair, the “gangsta” look, etc. Anyway, it’s hilarious and I know the kids will LOVE it! I’m planning on reading it to them and then having them create a Santa with a new & improved look! And then, of course, they’ll write about it. Maybe about why Santa needs a new look OR what he thinks about his new style. Still thinking about that, but that’s just an idea for ya!

Did y’all know that Santa’s really a cowboy at heart?! Well…if you’re from Texas…I know that’s what you believe ;) HA! We loved the idea of a “Cowboy Christmas” so we read a few stories with a real Southern drawl…cowboychristmascowboychristmas2

Then we made our own little cowboy Santas! {I forgot to take pics of the kid’s Santas…they were SO funny!} We gave each of the kids a speech bubble and had the kids write about what SANTA wants for Christmas! It was so cute reading their responses…apparently, Santa wants an iphone, an ipad, material for making stuff?!?!, an American Girl doll, new reindeer, cookies & milk, and a new sleigh. HA!

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And here are a few activities for your downloading pleasure ;) {Just click on the pics to download your copies :)}

wrappedwords2The directions are included in this little Santa activity…it can be used several different ways! I made sure it was “Kindergarten friendly” as well :)

wrappedwordsHere’s a fun little making words activity! Let me know if you need a better explanation that the directions provide ;)

wrappedwords3This is a little fact family sorting activity. I didn’t include a recording sheet because I’m planning on having the kids make their own fact family tree out of construction paper as an extension to this activity.

‘Tis The Season

Oh…I’m SO lovin’ all these fun little Christmas activities! There’s just something about this time of year, don’tcha think?! I’ve gotten SO many WONDERFUL ideas from blogland that I can’t wait to implement in my own room! Y’all are too dang much! Here are a few more things we worked on this week…

I was so inspired by Sarah Cooley’s Noun Town that we made one of our own, too! Since it’s the holiday season, we decided to make a Gingerbread Noun Town. We did some “city planning” before we got started. We talked about people, places, and things that we might see in our town and brainstormed a list of each. After city planning, I had each of the kids choose a different building to create {gingerbread style} using the list of buildings from our brainstorm chart {forgot to take pics!!} I set out cotton balls, garage sale dots, construction paper, and other little materials for them to use. They had to label their buildings as well!

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We had a candy shop & a dentist’s office right next to each other…an airport…a toy store {of course!}…and they were adamant about including a school! After we put our town together, I had the kids write a fiction story about their visit to Gingerbread Noun Town. I told them that they had to start with a “hook” and tell me why they visited and what they did when they got there. They LOVED it! And it was so fun to read their stories…SO creative! The kids illustrated their writing and then we assembled it into a Gingerbread house shaped book! They’re still working on this part, so they aren’t quite finished yet ;)

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You should check out Babbling Abby if you haven’t already. She has some DARLING Gingerbread activities and downloads posted on her blog!!

Speaking of Gingerbread, the holiday season just wouldn’t be complete without some kind of peppermint or candy cane activity. I can take NO credit for this idea…one of the teachers on my team has been doing this for years! And I think it’s PRECIOUS! We’ve been learning about doubles math facts, so we gave the kids two small paper plates and had them create peppermints using the backside of the plates. In the white part of the peppermints, the kids wrote their own doubles facts. We stapled the plates together, put them inside a little food baggie, and gathered the edges & tied them with yarn. I hung mine on my window, but some of the other teachers hung them from their ceilings. SO fun!

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