Update

I am losing my patience with blogger this week. So over the next few days, I will have a quick recap of the past few months. When each post is ready, the link will appear.

Apple Activities
Halloween
PTO Art Class
Root Beer Float Party
Pumpkin Children
Rudolph Children
Christmas






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PTO Art Class

Our PTO put on an art class for the Kindergarten and First Graders in November. They had real artists come in and teach them art techniques. These three had a great time!




There will be another class for Second and Third Grade in February, and then another one for Fourth and Fifth Grade later on.

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Christmas

Along with the Rudolph Children, we made Christmas Trees and Snowman Ornaments to decorate our classroom.


We reviewed our shapes while putting together these Christmas trees.




To make these ornaments, I had a parent paint each child's hand white and then wrap their hand around a blue ornament. Once they were dry, the children got to decorate each finger/thumb into a snowman. I used a paperclip to put little dots of snow around the snowmen, and then hung the finished products on our class tree. The class loved them! They kept asking when they could finally take them home. On the day of our Christmas celebration, I sent the ornaments home with this poem:

These aren't just five snowmen
As anyone can see.
I made them with my hand
Which is a part of me.
Now each year when you trim the tree
You'll look back and recall
Christmas of 2010
When my hand was just this small!



One of my teacher friends told me about this adorable activity, so I can't take all the credit this time! :)

Now on to our Christmas Party! I tried to have a normal morning of reading, language arts, spelling, etc. BUT the children (and I) were just too excited! So we started our party early. The kids were allowed to wear their pajamas and we had a Polar Express Party! We watched the movie, ate candy canes, donuts, drank hot chocolate, sang Christmas songs, and did Christmas rotations. In the afternoon, parents came and helped run four different centers.

Reindeer Ornaments






Reindeer Hats





Decorating Christmas Cookies/Making Christmas Cards



Christmas Patterning





After the rotations, we got cleaned up, read some Christmas books, and went home for a nice, LONG Christmas break. I've had a fantastic time in Canada with my family, but am looking forward to getting back to school. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas! :)

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Rudolph Children

I got this idea from the First Grade Teachers blog. The children LOVED it! Rudolph retired this year, so they filled out applications explaining why they would make a great replacement. They had some really great ideas!



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Pumpkin Children

A fellow first grade teacher told me about this super cute fall activity. I took a picture of each child pretending to push their way out of a pumpkin. They painted and cut out their pumpkins. I cut out their pictures and added them to the pumpkins. They wrote the poem, "Peter Peter Pumpkin eater, had a _____ and couldn't keep her". Most of the boys changed the her to him. They turned out ridiculously cute!





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Root Beer Float Party

We made our goal of earning $1,500 in Box Tops, and so the PTO rewarded the whole school with root beer floats! So yummy!




We have another goal of $1,500 by the end of February, so keep collecting your box tops!

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Halloween

This year I finally found the perfect Halloween costume. The past five years I was a cow, for lack of a better idea. I was so happy to dress up as the Tooth Fairy this year!




The whole gang


We started out Halloween party by singing some Halloween songs and making Witch's Brew. Delicious!

We then did five stations before the whole school parade. Fun times!

Ring Toss



Cookie Decorating





Skeletons




Pumpkin Walk



It turned into "hot pumpkin".

Ghost Lollipops & Halloween Cards



Scary Vampire!



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Apple Activities

To celebrate Johnny Appleseed's birthday in September, we did many apple related activities, including: apple tasting and graphing, ordering apples from 1 - 20, and tissue paper apples.












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