Elf Antics and Ideas for your Elf



Do you have an elf who comes to your classroom?

Of course you do!

Here are some of the antics our mischievous classroom elf was up to last year.

 

 

He decided to get stuck in our "stuck on a word strategies" wall and literally needed help!

 

After spending the day stuck, he was awfully tired and napped all day long.

 

Look who found our Band-aid stash!

 

He loves to read too!

 

Showing his Polar Express enthusiasm! 

 

 

We didn't have any new sight words this week so he decided to make up his own!

 

He must think I have a good class. A compliment goes a long way!

 

Trying to make us laugh at our class picture! What a funny guy.

 

Showing us his love for reading! 

 

A little TP never hurt anyone!

 

His last day message to us...

 

I can't wait for him to make his appearance sometime this week!

Gingerbread Galore

 

 It's officially THE most wonderful time of the year!

We always kick off December with a little tons of gingerbread fun.

 

Here are a few of the books we read throughout the week.

I use many of these stories to teach or reinforce lessons on comprehension skills such as sequencing, making predictions, retelling, etc.

 

Here are a few of the book responses we use:

 

 

In the past I have created this H-U-G-E gingerbread house. On it we compare 3 of the books we read during the week.  We also create and decorate our own gingy boys and girls and write our own story to go along with them!

 

 

I adore these tasty little cookies SO much that I created a Gingerbread Literacy unit to go along with our fun we have. Included are the responses you saw above and more!

 

 

Beyond reading, we have even more fun with gingerbread!

This fun science experiment from Abby is always a hit.

 

And who couldn't end the week without decorating AND eating some of these delicious gems!

It may just be the hit of the week!

To top of the gingerbread madness, I had my room mom come up and decorate our hallway and my door as a GIANT gingerbread house, complete with our team picture!

HAPPY DECEMBER



Black Friday FLASH FREEBIES

Want to join in on some holiday fun today?

All you have to do is follow me on Instagram!

@fortheloveoffirstgrade

Throughout the day I will be posting ALL of my holiday units as a FREEBIE for a limited amount of time.

All I ask is that you leave feedback if you download.

Thanks for playing along!

Five for {Thanksgiving} Friday!

Gobble, Gobble.

This teacher is off for Thanksgiving after today!

Here's a peek at a few Thanksgiving activities we completed throughout the week.

This doesn't have anything to actually do with Thanksgiving BUT I LOVE this shirt.

So cute and comfy!

Find it {HERE}

On to actual Thanksgiving things...

 

We disguised a Turkey as a Pigeon and tried convincing people to eat hot dogs instead of turkey for Thanksgiving.

We read Sarah Morton's Day (well skim read it since it's so long) and recorded what we would do if we were pilgrims. We did a little rip art as well!

We reviewed fact families and wrote our facts on feathers.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving activities is our "How to Cook a Turkey" writing.

Some of thm are just down right hilarious!

"....put it in the oven for 1 hour at 25 degrees..."

I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving break with your families!

Introducing Compound Words with a FREEBIE!

Compound Words.

I just LOVE them!

They are so much fun to teach because firsties just LOVE them too.

I introduced them last week using my anchor chart I created below.

{I most always pre-make my charts for the purpose of introducing a topic}

We also watched Dr. Jean's catchy song. My class this year is a singing group!

We read the book Once There Was a Bull.... (Frog).

This book is a great compliment to an introductory lesson as well. It gets the kids involved as they guess the second half of the compound word using the clues the book lends.

In small groups we played a card match game. I wrote compound words on 2 different color cards and the kiddos had to match the two words together to make a new one.

I put together a FREEBIE with all the activities mentioned in this post (minus the book and song).

Click on the picture above to download.

It includes:

*anchor chart

*center game

*recording sheet

Have a great week and happy {almost} Thanksgiving!

November, Turkeys and FREEBIES, Oh My!

Oh how I LOVE this time of year.

Routines are in place, rotations are abounding, readers are blooming...

But most of all it leads to fun themed filled learning experiences. 

Let's talk Turkey!

Decorations:

My team and I turkey'fied' our hall this past week.

We each took a different color feather and had our kiddos trace their hands. 

We change out our picture each month and this month WE are in the Turkey's roasting pan! AH!

Math:

We've been putting our addition and subtraction knowledge together to make fact families. We created fact family turkeys. The numbers to make up the family are on the turkey's head and his tail feathers are actually the facts!

Here's a little extra practice we do with dominoes...

{Click on the picture to download the FREEBIE}

Phonics/Spelling:

To review blends I give each student 4 feathers and have them look through their books in their book boxes for words that have that  blend in them. They record the words on the feathers, I have them read me their words, they outline with marker and create a turkey with them!

{Find the FREE template here from Cara Carroll}

Writing:

Alliterations, or tongue twisters, are one of the most fun things to teach!

Kids love them and what they come up with is even better.

You really get to see how creative firsties can be!

To start this activity, we first brainstorm a list of "T" words.

 

Each students has to do the following:

1. Name their turkey with a "T" name

2. Give their turkey an action

Here is my example I share with the class:

Student work:

"Teddy the turkey threw the tiger at the teacher."

We obviously LOVE turkeys!

It's Time for Thanksgiving

November is in full swing, and I absolutely LOVE it!

The holidays are my favorite time of the year. Not to mention...It's my birthday month (yes month!), the kiddos are finally into a set routine and I get to spend a week at Thanksgiving with my family!

Here's a little bit of what we do during the week of Thanksgiving using my It's Thanksgiving unit. 

You can pick it up on sale the rest of this week...perfect time for the week before Thanksgiving!

Stop by my shop to find this Thanksgiving FREEBIE !

{Click on the link to grab it in my shop}