Brrr!

Even though this first week back was a little tiring, the weather has been gorgeous!! It has been cold down here for us South Floridians!! I finally got a chance to pull out my boots and long sleeves...so fun! I also got to pull out a box of hot chocolate from the back of my kitchen cabinet! This week was the perfect time to do some hot chocolate adjective words...

 This was my example I made with the students, but when they did their own..it came out so much cuter! I wish I had taken a picture.  They colored their cups bright colors and even colored inside the cup brown to look like cocoa.  Much prettier than mine!! 

Even though it is warming up already down here I know some of you will still be drinking hot chocolate for awhile longer (I am actually jealous of you!) I am attaching the pattern below in case you can use it!

Hot Chocolate Patterns

Salt Dough Ornaments

Yayy!! The ornaments came out perfectly! I ended up leaving them in the oven for the full 6 hours.  Today the kids painted them beautifully! They dry really fast so I ended up painting 2 coats of the varnish on top to make sure they were shiny! I love how they turned out and all the kids are super excited to give them to their parents!

 

On a different note, looks like our friend Wings got in a little trouble...

 The kids had me hysterically laughing when they came in and saw this in the morning. They couldn't believe that Wings was tied up and they really couldn't believe that their toys come to life also!  Some of the students were worried about Wings so we made sure to leave him with a pair of scissors so he could get out :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their last couple of days! I am just hoping to make it through the craziness of the holiday party tomorrow!

Almost Winter Break!

How fun are these soldiers lining the Kindergarten hallway?! I love them!! The kids love making them (I usually like their book buddies to help out) and they are actually pretty easy!! But anyways....

I am so excited for winter break!! I am really planning on just staying home and RELAXING!! Of course I need to get things done around the house, Christmas shop, work on some new units, train for a marathon (not my idea!!)....but, my number one plan is to sit on the couch and catch up on my tivo!! 

For now though, there are 3 more days of school and I still haven't had my students make a gift for their parents.  When I got in the car today I had a text from my sister asking if I watched The Chew.  I hadn't even heard of it..but she went on to tell me how this morning they made salt dough ornaments and they came out super cute and EASY!! So, it was perfect timing.  I texted her back, told her to come over and help, and sure enough...

 I have salt dough ornaments baking in the oven as we speak!! Tomorrow I will bring them to school and let the children paint them.  When they are dry I will paint them with some varnish, tie on a ribbon, and WA-LA! We have our gifts! Super cute! 
How to make them? It's only 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of warm water. Mix together, roll out, cut your shapes, and then stick them in the oven at 200 degrees for somewhere between 4 and  6 hours...mine are at about 2 hours right now :) Oh, and don't forget to poke the holes in them! I used a pen even though the show recommended a straw!

Our Elf is Here!

My kids were so super excited when I introduced our Elf on the Shelf.  We read the story together and talked about how you cannot touch the elf or he loses his magic! But first you have to give your Elf a name.  My kids brainstormed some crazy names for our Elf and when the voting was done we were left with.....Wings!!! haha Then we talked about how the Elf is a great listener, but Santa does not let him talk to children. Throughout the rest of the day I would overhear students going up to Wings and telling him what they want for Christmas... you know, the little things...an itouch, a nintendo, a new baby brother!!

Every night Wings flies back to the North Pole and reports to Santa.  When he comes back in the morning he is always in a different spot in the classroom...On Thursday he was fishing for some goldfish 

 

Then, this morning he made our cooking activity for us! We were supposed to be making reindeer cookies in our morning center..but Wings got to it first.

 

He even squirted some icing onto our feeling picture cards and turned those frowns, upside down!!

So fun!!

I know there are a couple other teachers doing Elf on the Shelf as well. If you are, let me know if you have some good classroom ideas! My teacher bff next door (who just started blogging) has a little Elf of her own named Sparkles! Check out her blog over at Paste and Pearls and become one of her followers!!