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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Christmas in our Classroom

It's only December 2nd, but I'm not wasting any time getting in all our Christmas activities!

Check out what we've been up to, and what we still have planned!

 

 

Today I had a parent volunteer come and help finish our Snowmen Ornaments.  These ornaments hang on our classroom Christmas tree until the end of December.  On the day before the break, I send them home with a note as a gift for their parents.  I LOVE the way they turn out.  They are quick, easy, and very cheap!  I always buy the blue ornaments after Christmas when they are on sale, and save them for the next year.  You can grab the FREE instructions and notes here.

 

 

We are hard at work on our Handprint Calendars.  My goal is to finish all the handprints this week, so we can bind and decorate!  I love these so much.  I've done them with my class every year for the past 10 years.  I only missed the year when I was transitioning from a new state/grade.  That was WAY too much stress to even go there.  You can grab my Handprint Calendars here.

  

Our High School has a goal to send 10,000 snowflakes to soldiers overseas for the holiday.  I thought this was an amazing opportunity for my kiddos to show some appreciation and give some service.  They loved it!  Our 25 are finished, turned in, and on their way!  Only 9,975 left to go!  :) 

 

 

We typed up our Gingerbread notes to send home on Friday!  On the day before our winter break, we invite parents to come in and build gingerbread houses with their child.  This is one of their favorite activities in all of 2nd grade.  On the first day of school, they all talk about how they can't wait to make the gingerbread houses!  It's always such a special event!  I'll do a more detailed post about those soon, but here's a sample note for you to get started, if it's something you want to do.  We make our gingerbread houses around milk cartons.  We collect them from the lunch room to use.  Parents bring in all the other supplies, so it's cheap and easy for the teacher!  :) 

 

 

 Today was day 2 of our time with Elfie.  We are having a great time with him!  My class definitely calmed down from all the excitement of his arrival yesterday.  You can grab my Elf in the Classroom packet here.   

 

This week we are working on persuasive writing.  We are writing letters to Santa, convincing his to hire us as an Elf. We are still in the planning stages, but well on our way! 

 We are using this packet. 

When they finish their good copy, they get to "Elf Themselves".  I love that Corinna has the templates all ready.  So simple!  (And free!)  :)

 

Next week we will begin learning about Holidays Around the World.  This is another one of my favorite units to teach.  I use a combination of Rachelle and Stephanie's packets. 

 

 

They are both excellent!  My students learn a ton, and have a great time doing it! 

 

Only a few more hours left in the big TPT Cyber Monday/Tuesday Sale!  I'll be back later this week to post about what I bought!

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What the November???

How on earth did it suddenly become November!?  Let alone, the end of November!  But, I'm really glad it's here, because that means December is just around the corner.  Some of my most favorite classroom activities happen during this special month.

 

Handprint Calendars

I've got the calendars copied, the cardstock purchased, and the paint ready to go.  We are starting this adorable Christmas Gift tomorrow!  I can't wait!  I started making these calendars during my first year of teaching.  But I took a break from them the last two years, as I adjusted to the new state, district, grade level, and school.  Now I am ready and raring to go! 

 

Elf on the Shelf

Last year was the first year my classroom ever had a little Christmas Elf.  It was more fun than I could have ever imagined!  I really hope we get another one this year.  ;) 

 

In case we do, I prepared a little Christmas Elf in the Classroom packet. 

It is FULL of activities and ideas to use with your classroom Elf. 

 

Included in this packet are:
-Two Calendars to fill in for the daily Elf Activities
-Worksheet for students to decide on the Elf’s Name
-Tally Chart and Bar Graph for choosing the Elf’s Name
-30 Suggested Activities (with original matching poems) for your Elf to do
-Two Versions of A Daily Elf Journal
-A Weekly Elf Reflection Page
-A note to leave if your class is too naughty
-A note to leave on your Elf’s last day

 

Lucky for you, it is ON SALE today and tomorrow. 

Click here to check it out! 

 

Gingerbread Houses

I LOVE the tradition of having parents come make gingerbread houses with their children.  At first I thought it would be too chaotic, but it was definitely a controlled chaos.  :) 

 

Pretty soon we will be sending a note inviting parents/families to this special event.  When we do, I will upload a copy of the note here for you to use. 

 

Have a great week!  :)

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Gifts and Gingerbread

Winter Break is finally here!!!  I am taking a few, quick minute to post some pictures, before I go off to finish shopping, cleaning, and packing.  I'm Canada bound tomorrow!!  

(Not at ALL ready for the cold weather.  I've been freezing here in AZ with the 50 degree weather...)

My favorite class Christmas party so far has been gingerbread houses.  It is EASY and so much fun!  We saved milk cartons and glued them together on boards as a base.  I had parents bring in donations for the houses and come help.  They pretty much ran the whole show!  From setting up, helping make the houses, and cleaning up.  They were lifesavers!  

  

 

The creator of this awesome gingerbread house never leaves without giving me a hug and saying thank you.  Today, she just wrote it out and told me she didn't need to say it, because I could just read it.  She's so sweet!  

After some serious deliberating, I gave my class homemade gingerbread play dough and a gingerbread man cookie cutter.  It was perfect to hand out after we made gingerbread houses, and they LOVED it!!!  I found these adorable cookie cutters at Michaels for 99 cents!  I used my teacher discount and saved even more.  I found several versions of the play dough recipe on pinterest, but this is the one I used.  I loved it!  It was easy to make, but took me about seven batches to make enough for my class.  Each single batch made enough for about 4 or 5 students.  I gave them a ball about 2 inches wide.  After seven batches, I had enough for 30 gifts.  Click here to get two different poems and the recipe I used.  Enjoy!

I LOOOOOOOOOVE my parent volunteers!  So I gave them some nail polish from Ulta along with this cute note.  

We gave the office and support staff some chap stick and kisses.  I whipped up this little note to go with.  

Check out more Ho-Ho-Holiday Gift ideas here.

I'm off to the races!  

Happy Holidays everyone!!! 

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Christmas Ornaments

We made these adorable Christmas ornaments this week!  

They are now happily hanging on our class Christmas tree until Christmas.  

Before the break, I'll send them home with one of these notes:

See specific directions and grab a few free notes to go with them here.

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Christmas

I missed the Christmas party, because I had to drive up to Canada for the holidays.  So sadly, I have NO pictures from that.  But we had a super fun Grinch party, and if you follow my Christmas Pinterest Board, you'll see the link to a bunch of those activities.  

But these are two projects we did in December.  

This super cute art project came from Mrs. Jump.

 "This is my family.  They fill my heart with love."

And then of course, letters to Santa.  

Santa Letter

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You're a Mean One...

Meet our Grinch! 

{Yes, I drew him myself!}

My kiddo's are looking for random acts of kindness to fill the Grinch with love.  Whenever they see someone doing something nice for someone else, the person doing the kind deed gets to put a heart on the Grinch.  If we can fill the Grinch with hearts, we get to have a Grinch Christmas Party the day before Christmas Break!  I have a pretty good feeling we are going to make it!  :)  

The Grinch's heart was two sizes too small.

Let's show him we care for one and for all! 

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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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