Rainbow Christmas Tree

One of the prettiest sights at Christmastime is the decorated tree. In this activity, your child will construct his own Christmas tree while practicing cutting out rectangles, overlapping and measuring to create this adorable modern design. It's also a great way to begin learning design and repetitive patterns.

What You Need:

• Construction paper in a variety of colors
• Scissors
• White paper
• Glue stick
• Pencil
• Ruler 

What You Do:

1. Have your child place the construction paper, one sheet of each color, in a horizontal, or landscape position.
2. Then, set one sheet of white paper to the side in a vertical position.
3. Ask him to cut strips of paper from the bottom to the top of each sheet of paper. The strips should be about 1" wide.
4. Have him cut one small square for the base of the tree, about 2.5" x 2.5", and glue it to the bottom of the white paper.
5. Encourage him to draw and cut out a star for the top of his tree. Set it aside for now.
6. Ask him to lay out the strips of colored paper on the white paper, overlapping them to create the basic shape of the Christmas tree. Don't worry if the paper extends over the edges of the tree, it'll be cut down later.
7. Encourage him to play with changing up the colors and various ways of slanting the rectangles, overlapping them to create his tree. When the rectangles of paper are in their final positions, have him use the ruler to lightly draw a straight line (not a diagonal) where the paper should be cut.
8. Have him carefully lift up each edge of paper and cut it along his drawn line, then glue it in place.
9. Continue cutting and gluing until all rectangles are adhered in position from top to bottom, small to large.
10. Complete the Christmas tree by having him glue the star at the very top of the tree.

My kindergartners had a blast making these Christmas trees this year!  To adapt it, I pre-cut all the strips of paper and they arranged them in order from shortest to longest.  It was a fantastic way to end our measurement unit.  You can check out my Merry Measurement Unit here.  

This engaging and educational Christmas craftivity comes from Education.com.  

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Queen for a Day

Today I got to dress up like a Queen!

We have had THE BEST time in Math this week.  

To start off, I had an AMAZING substitute yesterday who really helped set the whole stage for this impromptu lesson.  We are in the beginning of our measure unit.  To start off, she told them that she was going to read them the story of a king who wants his apprentice to make a bed for his queen.  They discussed questions the apprentice would have to answer in order to be able to make the bed.  Then she read them the book, How Big Is a Foot?   

From Amazon:  "The King wants to give the Queen something special for her birthday. The Queen has everything, everything except a bed. The trouble is that no one in the Kingdom knows the answer to a very important question: How Big is a Bed? because beds at the time had not yet been invented. The Queen's birthday is only a few days away. How can they figure out what size the bed should be?"

After reading the book, they discussed the importance of using feet (as in the body part) versus using the standard units of measurement.  She then told them that they were going to attempt to make a bed fit for QUEEN VAN ORMAN.  They worked in small groups using a 12 inch ruler.  They were told to create a bed that is 6 feet long and 3 feet wide.  When they were finished, they decorated their beds and hung them on the walls.  

I LOVED the decorations!  A couple of the groups did an AMAZING job coloring and decorating their beds to match my taste.  They know I love chevron, so they tried to draw it.  

not birds - HA!

So sweet!

My substitute also left me this adorable note in order to finish up the lesson the next day.  

Today, when I was back at school, I pulled out my Dollar Tree Royal Crown, Earrings, Scarves, and Glasses and got my Royal Ruler ready to inspect their beds!  

Two of the groups made PERFECT beds for me!  The others were close, but it led us to some great conversation on how we line up rulers, why it's important to know about different tools of measurement (ruler/yardstick/measuring tape), appropriate times for standard/non-standard units of measurement, etc.  

It really was the best day ever!

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Instagram Overload

Do you follow me on Instagram?  If not, click here!  I decided to do a little Instgram dump for you this evening.  Here are some of my recent/most favorite instagram pictures.  Enjoy!  :)

Dressing up in winter clothes on a 90 degree day to introduce our weather unit. 

They all thought I was cRaZy!

How Big is a Foot?

Measurement Activity 

The correct way for children to read in groups of four.  

Partner Reading & Retell

Retell Ring from FCRR

My new shirt!  

I tried so hard to look happy, but it was an early Friday morning and I was exhausted!

Shirt from Spread Shirt

I'm *officially* DIBELS trained!  

Two looooooong nights, but on the bright side, I got to meet one of my blogging buddies - Mandy!

She was just as sweet and cute in person!  :)

{We still need to do lunch sometime soon!}

Our Funny Pumpkins

We earned over 5,000 points with our last Scholastic Book order and every student was able to pick out a free book!

Happy kiddos!

I bought this clock with my Scholastic points.  It was a HIT!

Ribbons for Red Ribbon Week

The class signs them and we hang them outside our door.  

We don't decorate doors at our school, but we do decorate the pillars.  

Crazy Sock Day- ZUMBA style!

Hedgehog Bakes a Cake

We read this story as part of our reading series, so naturally we had to try out his recipe.
It was DELICIOUS!!! 

We are in the middle of our economics unit and lovin' the resources from One Extra Degree!

Economy 101

Lemonade Economics

Place Value Scavenger Hunt from Step Into Second Grade!

Number Knowledge

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Measurement

We started our measurement unit by seeing how many ice cream scoops tall we all were.  

Ms. Van Orman is about 16 ice cream scoops tall!

I forgot to take a picture of this year's bulletin board, but it looked like this one from last year.

Ice Cream Measurement

We used Inchy Inchworm to measure objects around the room.  

Inch Worms Color

Inch Worms Black/White

Inch Worms Recording Sheet

We practice measuring capacity with various containers.  They went CRAZY with the different colors.  I just put a couple drops of food coloring in the bottom of each container before we started filling them up, so it was quite the surprise!

 

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