Almost Christmas Break

Hello to all of my fabulous follower and readers!  Is your district on Christmas Break yet?  In my district, this is the last five days before break.  I don't know about y'all, but I've found that the weeks leading up to Christmas break can be a little hairy.  So last year I began using the Elf on the Shelf in my classroom to help encourage positive behavior choices.  Since she worked out so well last year, I decided to use her again this year.  Our amazing assistant principal delivered her box, fresh from the cafeteria freezer, to our classroom.  The students were amazed at how cold the box was, and then were thrilled when our 5th Grade Buddies dropped off a SECOND package from the North Pole.  Inside that box was a copy of the Elf on the Shelf movie.  After we watched the movie and read the story, my little voted on a name for our elf.  This year she has been Christened as Frost the Elf.  Last year she was Jingles, and I just love how they keep to a theme!!
  These last 5 days before break can be very, very stressful in kindergarten.  I came up with some little notes of encouragement from our elf that would show up in our room each morning of the last five days.  With each note was a special treat.  I found a fancy wrapped box at the Dollar Tree, and inside I put enough treats and notes for each student in the class.  I place the elf on top of the box and wait for it to be found by my kiddos.  Then I read the note and they try to guess what the treat is.  Afterwards, everyone gets a treat and a note.  They totally look forward to seeing what our elf has left us.  If you use the elf in your classroom, please help yourself to this FREEBIE of positive encouragement treat notes!

Another FREEBIE that might help make your planning easier this week is a little Easy Emergent reader I created to help work with positional words.  Students use the pictures to help them figure out the positional words, and you can also use the sentences to practice finding subject and verb.  Enjoy!!

I hope that the last few days before break go as smoothly as possible for you, considering Christmas is only 10 days away!!  Can you STAND IT!?!?!  I hope that you and your loved ones get to spend some time together.  This will be our first Christmas without Mom, so I'm not sure how much celebrating we'll do, but we're keeping the spirit as alive as we can!!

Christmas Product Sale

Happy Snow Day!!  Well, at least in my neck of the woods!  We had an unexpected 6 inches of snow fall yesterday, so schools were cancelled today.  I took to opportunity to finish up some activities I have been working on for this month.  Since there's less than two full weeks left of school (for me) before Christmas Break, I thought I'd put my newest creations on sale in the hopes that you can use them before Christmas has passed!  Please go check them out at my TPT store, on sale until Wednesday, December 11th!!  Click on the links and you'll go right there!!

This amazingly stuffed packet is full of Christmas themed centers you can use in your room during those last few weeks before Christmas vacation!  There are 2 different center activities for 5 different centers: Pocket Chart Center, ELA Center, Writing Center, Write the Room Center, and Math Center.

A great way to practice those subitizing skills, and works great as an activity to use with those students who are having a bit of a hard time understanding the numbers 1-10.  I use this with my RTI students, and they LOVE the cute gingerbread graphics.

 As always, please stop by and let me know how you are using these activities in your classroom!!  If you're enjoying a snow day or two, have a wonderful and relaxing mini-break from the stress of school!!  :-)

CYBER MONDAY TPT SALE

Happy Turkey Day everyone!! I hope you are getting time to spend with your family and friends and take a moment to think about what you're thankful for.  I'm thankful for my family, my job, friends, and that I got to spend almost 33 years with my mom!!
   I'm also very thankful for all of my fabulous followers here and at my TPT store.  My store will be participating in the HUGE Cyber Monday sale at TPT, where everything is up to 28% off with the code CYBER.  Stop on by to fill out a wish list and make sure to buy up lots of resources for your classroom!!

I hope that you all have an amazing time off and enjoy each other!!

Littlest Dragon

OMG, something AMAZING has happened in Room 130!!!  A few weeks ago I applied for a grant through the organization Pets in the Classroom (petsintheclassroom.org).  They are a non-profit organization that believes every classroom should have a pet in order for students to learn more about them as well as how to be responsible when caring for a pet.  The grant covers the animal's habitat as well as a 50% off coupon for the animal itself.  There were MANY choices of class pets, including mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.  I chose the bearded dragon, since we are the Kindergarten Dragons I thought that was PERFECT!!  Well, in the mail yesterday I received a letter from them that said 'Congratulations, you were approved!!'  I was SO EXCITED I had to run out to PetCo. that night and pick up our newest dragon!!!  How stinkin' cute is he!?!?!?

I am already so very much in love with him!!  He's SO TINY!!!  That's him next to his food dish, see how TINY he is!!  He'll get much bigger, the size of my forearm!!  He has been a huge hit in my classroom, and student's voted on their name choices today.  Their ideas for names are 'Fire Wings', 'Blaze', 'Hot Wings', and 'Draco'.  I'm partial to 'Blaze', but I haven't counted up the votes yet.

See the awesomely AMAZING habitat set-up that was covered by the grant??  Since he's a desert critter, he needs two special day-time heat lamps and one special night-time heat lamp (included in the kit).  My dad provided the mini-lock for the tank so my littles can't get him out, and since this week is Bully Prevention/Drug Awareness Week my kinders thought our dragon needed a red ribbon of his own!

My kinders have decided that he is a REALLY REAL dragon and the reason he doesn't have his wings and fire yet is because he's a baby, and if we are responsible and take good care of him he will grow up to be a big and strong dragon with wings and fire!




Plus, since he is a kindergarten dragon it has been decided that he needs to learn his ABCs.  So, I found some vinyl-clings that we have stuck onto the side of his tank so he can work on mastering his alphabet! (Having some trouble getting that pic to load, but as soon as I can I'll make sure to share!!)


If you're able to have a pet in your classroom, you really need to go check out petsintheclassroom.org!!

Literature Links

Happy Monday!!  Our students have off today because we have a full day of Professional Development.  Lots of meetings today, so wanted to get a quick post up and out there!  I STILL have no internet at home, and it's MAKING ME CRAZY!!!
   During Social Studies this marking period we have been learning all about ourselves and our feelings, and we have been reading a lot of stories about feelings.  Reading stories isn't just something that I love and my littles love, but it gives them something to make a connection to.  They can find details in the story that may have happened in their lives or in the life of someone they know.  When we did our week on Bullying Prevention (October is Bully Awareness Month, and coincidentally it is also National Pit Bull Awareness Month) we read all sorts of wonderful literature examples of  preventing bullying.  So when we did our discussion on feelings, one of my favorite examples of a story about feelings is 'When Sopie Gets Angry, Really Really Angry' by Molly Bang.  (click the picture to get a copy from Amazon.com if you don't have one of your own!)

I love how this story has such incredible illustrations for when Sophie gets really, really angry.  My favorite one to discuss with my littles in when she feels like a volcano that will explode and when she roars her anger.  It always leads to a great discussion about what they do when they get angry, and then we can discuss good choices for how they handle their anger.  They love to share about times when they were angry about something, and they love to help each other figure out ways to handle their anger.  After our discussion, they got a chance to draw and write about a time they got really, really angry.  After they write about what made them angry they were to write and draw about what a good choice would be to help with their anger.  If you're interested in doing this lesson with your kiddos, please click on the Literature Link below and you can have the writing page that we completed after reading the story.  Hope you all have a great week!!

For some reason my Literature Link didn't include the credit for the fonts that I LOVE to use, so here's where I get them!!  Jen Jones has some AMAZING fonts, and many of them are free for personal use.  You'll have to go check them out!!  Click on the image to head over to her blog!!

Character and Setting

Happy Sunday Funday!!  In K-Town this week, we have been focusing on Common Core Standard K.RL.3 - With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.  We have been reading some of our favorite stories and identifying the characters and settings.  We have also used the SMART Board to look at a setting and decide what type of character would fit there, or if a character belongs in that setting.  We put Rainbow Fish in the setting of the farm, and discussed if that was a good setting for the Rainbow Fish or not and why.  Then we completed a writing activity.  Students were allowed to choose either a setting card or a character card.  They were then to draw either the setting their character was found in, or the characters that would be found in their setting.  There were some super cute responses!!

Some of the pictures are blurry, still learning how to use my new phone!!  This one reads 'My character is a dog so my setting is at the park.'

'My character is a pumpkin so my setting is a tractor.'

'My setting is a train so my character is a conductor.'

'My character is an elf so my setting is the North Pole.'

'My character is a fish so my setting is the ocean.'

'My setting is the garden so my character is the flower.'

'My setting is a tree so my character is a monkey.'

'My setting is an owl so my character is the forest.'

How stinkin' cute are they!?!?!  Our kinders have been working on sounding out their words, as well as writing their sight words 'a', 'an', and 'the'.  Myself and another teaching partner stapled the cards to the student's papers, and another team mate had her little include their cards in their pictures.  I think that is a SUPER cute idea, thanks for sharing Danielle!!!  I feel that our kinders now have a deeper understanding of the definition of 'character' and 'setting'.  If you're interested in this activity, follow the link to my TPT store and get a copy for yourself!!

TPT is throwing a huge sale to celebrate them having 100,000 Facebook followers!!  In order to help them celebrate, I'm throwing a sale at my store too!  Enter the code 'FB100K' to get an additional 10% off of the already 20% off sale I'm throwing.  Just wanted to help THANK YOU ALL for helping TPT to grow, which in turns helps us all.  YOU ALL ROCK OUT LOUD!!!

Crayon Box That Talked

Happy Tuesday!!  One of my littles told me that Tuesdays are 'Taco Tuesdays', so make sure to enjoy a taco tonight!!  :-)


During the first marking period at our school we are learning all about rules, routines, feelings, and how to be a good friend.  One of my favorite books to read during this unit is The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane Derolf and Michael Letzig.  Besides talking about how to be a good friend, we use this book to address the Common Core Standard K.RL.3 - With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

I got this book through Scholastic, but if you don't have one click on the image to link up to Amazon to get your own!!


I whipped up a quick response sheet for my littles to draw the two main characters of this story, the crayons and the little girl.  They are also going to attempt to write the labels for the characters.  Here's the freebie if you'd like to try this activity with your class!

Hope that you have a wonderful day!!!  :-)