Kindergarten Holiday Party!

We work right up to December 23rd this year so these past couple of weeks have been so hectic! Planning, prepping, holiday parties, Christmas shopping, parties, etc. AH!!  My go to party planning stop is always Oriental Trading! Makes planning super easy and they ship quickly! 

I ordered all of my ceiling decor from Oriental Trading.  I ordered lanterns and garland.  I also ordered their roll of table cloths.  I was able to cover 6 tables and probably still have enough to use for a couple of years.  I can even use it again at our Valentine's Day celebration which is nice! Or even Apple Day! (These thoughts are all just coming to me, haha)

At our party we made these delicious Christmas trees! 

To hold all of the tree decor I used these little Christmas trays from Oriental Trading.

We also made these old school ornaments. I know I made one of these when I was little too!

 If you look in the image above, you can see the reindeer necklaces that we made. These were a huge hit! Oriental Trading has all of the beads and string needed to make the cute center!

Look how much they give you on these awesome table cloth rolls! These also fit write into the plastic storage bins for easy storage 'til next year!

I wasn't able to upload my Photo Booth pictures yet, but Oriental Trading has amazing backdrops and Photo Booth props! 

I ordered enough elf hats for everyone to take home too! They LOVED them!

I can't wait for Christmas to get here already!!

Happy Holidays to all!

Gingerbread Hunt in Kindergarten [Free Gingerbread Hunt Cards Included]

Last week we spent the week reading TONS of gingerbread books. We read the Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Boy, Gingerbread Girl, The Gingerbread Baby, Gingerbread Cowboy, the Gingerbread Bear, the Gingerbread Pirates....you name it, I have it!! I probably have and read WAY too many gingerbread books this week.  Is there such thing of too many gingerbread books?

Well, on Friday we had a guest reader (a student's grandmother) in for our 'book and cook'.  We read, The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School. 

When she was done reading we talked about what we would do if a gingerbread man got loose in our school.  The kids said, ' no way that could ever actually happen!' I agreed ;)

Then, each table was given a gingerbread cookie kit.  They had to work together to create a gingerbread man, girl, baby, boy, pirate, anything their little hearts desired!

I found the kits at our local Publix; however, you can also find them HERE.

When they were done, we had 4 delicious looking cookies! But, it was our playground time so we went out to the park and I promised the students we would be able to eat our cookies as soon as we got back!

On our way to the park we realized we forgot to tell our gingerbread cookies to stay put! So we turned around to tell them, just in case they were going to run!  

(I had our guest reader hide them for me in the classroom next door).

But, when we got back to our room to tell them, they were already gone! We found a clue on our front board and followed the clues around the school.  The kids LOVED it!

You can download these gingerbread hunt cards for free by clicking on the image below.

 

While we were on our 'hunt' the grandmother put our cookies back into our room.  The last clue led us back to our classroom and there they were!  We ate them as fast as would could so they wouldn't run away again!

Delicious!

Asking for an Elf on the Shelf

Have you been debating on whether or not to have an Elf in your classroom?  Well, I absolutely LOVE having an Elf in the class during this time of the year.  It adds so much excitement to our school day! The kids can't wait to get to school in the morning to see what the Elf has done or where the Elf is next.  They talk about our Elf throughout the day and all night at home too!

We watch the Elf movie as a class (with parent permission) then we talk about whether or not we want an Elf for our classroom.  Of course the kids all say, 'YES!'.

For our writing lesson that day, we all write a letter to Santa asking for an Elf.  Now I do have a mix of students in my class- some celebrate Hanukkah and some Christmas.  I get parent permission beforehand and I explain to parents that we will cover ALL holidays throughout the month and we will respect others traditions and beliefs.

After everyone has written a letter, we add them into envelopes so I can mail them off! 

Then I wait a couple of days before introducing our Elf to the class!

I want to incorporate the Elf more into writing this year so I made these Elf writing pages/journal. 

Click below to download yours for FREE.