Happy New Year: My Resolutions (Freebie)

 Have you set some New Years resolutions for yourself this year? I always come up with one, but unfortunately I have never followed through with it for the entire year!! I don't know what happens haha 

My friends at Freebielicious and I want to share some of our goals and resolutions for 2014 with you! To help you get a jump start on the new year we've also added some freebies that may help you reach your own similiar goals. 

A lot of my family and friends are getting married, getting engaged,  having babies, etc. and I have SO not been very good at keeping track of all these important dates!  This year WILL be different!

In order to help myself reach my goal I have created this 'special occasions' calendar where I can write down birthdays, anniversaries, etc. 

Click on the image below for your freebie:

I haven't decided if I am going to keep this in a binder at home or in my lesson planning binder at school, but either way, I am NEVER going to miss another important day! YAY! I would love to hear your New Year's Resolutions!

Hop on over to Sharing Kindergarten  to see her resolution and matching freebie!

And before you go...I am throwing a 20% off sale in my TPT store to celebrate the New Year! 

Head back to school with some of my new winter activities ;)

 

Elf on Shelf: In the Classroom {Week 2}

Last Friday, our class made these cute wreaths to hang up in the classroom. A couple of the girls decided to make wreaths to give to Sparkle for their doors in the North Pole. Well, there was no way Sparkle could fly with all of those wreaths! So, when we arrived at school on Monday, we found Sparkle hanging along side our wreaths! 

This week, Sparkle also brought snowballs to our classroom! She had a little snowball fight of her own, but she also left us a little note saying that if they were good, they could have their own snowball fight! 

Sparkle also showed up in a new skirt!! The kids couldn't believe it!! The girls just knew that Santa must have given her a sparkly skirt because of her name!

 They didn't earn their snowball fight right away, but on Friday they were able to have one! SO MUCH FUN! I have 10 girls and 10 boys in my class so it is just easy to do girls vs. boys. We put a line down the center of the class and I told them that when the music started they had to try to get all of the snowballs off of their side. When the music stopped, whoever had the least amount of snowballs would win!

Believe it or not, the girls won every time! I think the boys were more concerned with throwing it at the girls instead of just getting the snowballs off of their side! I purchased the snowballs HERE.

I was out for team leader meetings one day this week, so Sparkle left them a little reminder to 'be good' while I was gone!

 We are having so much fun with our Elf! Read about other 'classroom elves' below!

Gingerbread Craft

This afternoon we decided to relax with some Christmas music and make a new craft to decorate our empty hallway bulletin board!

As soon as I showed the kids my example and described what we would be making, I sent them to their seats. Right away one of my little girls said, "Can we listen to music?" I was like YES! Great idea! Pandora's Kids Christmas Favorites was the perfect station!

I passed out the gingerbread pieces one at a time so I didn't overwhelm the students, or bury them in scrap paper! 

They turned out super cute and the kids fell in love with them! I think my girls love anything with a bow ;)

Of course the boys came out adorable too! They kept asking me for a hat for their gingerbread man...haha, maybe next time!

Beautiful!

I added this craft to my store this afternoon if you need a last minute bulletin board idea! 

The gingerbread man craft is also included in the Gingerbread Combo pack or the Gingerbread Math pack if you already purchased that! 

Holidays Around the World: Mexico

Today was our first day traveling the world!! The kids had a BLAST! On Monday we pulled down the map and discussed how our school is in a city, which is in the state of Florida, which is in a country, etc. Then we brainstormed other countries that we knew about--this was a tough one! I was getting answers like New England (I think because the Patriots game was on the night before haha). So we really had to take a closer look at our world map. It ended up being a great little lesson!

Then we talked about the holidays we celebrate and how people around the world celebrate different holidays or celebrate the same holiday differently. I asked them if they wanted to travel around the world to check out the similarities/differences. Of course they said YES!

So we started brainstorming things we would need: suitcases, airplane tickets, and I introduced passports-which was new to most students! Then we started preparing!

This morning we filled out our boarding passes. They LOVED that the bar code was on there! I overheard them talking about how there is an 'actual scanner!'

We grabbed our suitcases in one hand and our boarding passes in the other and we lined up! I 'scanned' all of their tickets and collected their suitcases to put them under the airplane! You know how those overhead compartments always fill up way too quickly ;)

We buckled our seat belts, I did a quick airplane safety presentation, and then informed them that today they were in luck...we had a free, in-flight, movie! The movie was all about Mexico!

I showed them the slides (from my Holidays Around the World unit) and we discussed the Mexican traditions. 

When we arrived in Mexico we made beautiful poinsettia flowers. But, that just wasn't enough for my little tourists. During the in-flight movie, they learned that piñatas are popular at the Las Posadas parties. So, they just had to make one of their own! 

 Each student was allowed to pick a couple pieces of candy.

We decorated paper bags with tissue paper and put the candy inside. Then, I punched a hole in the bag, tied a string to the top, and there you have it...a piñata!

We added a Mexico sticker onto our suitcases and glued our Mexico stamp into our passports.

During writing, each student wrote one page in their travel journal. They turned out adorable. I can't wait to see them when they are finished traveling the world!

The above activities can be found in my Holidays Around the World unit on TPT.