Winter Writing Prompts & Craftivity

I have been loving my time off with my family! Staying in my pajamas until the early afternoon is AWESOME! I never get to do that and now I have been doing it for a couple days! It's great! Right now I am listening to the rain pattering on my roof and catching up with my blogging and emails. I have a smile on my face because my house is so quiet and everyone else is asleep still. I am sure that will change in just a moment though.

During my break, I have been working on revamping, improving and inspiring my writing lessons in my classroom. I have said it before and I will say it again-writing is one of the hardest things to teach! I love to teach it, but it is so subjective, that you never know what the outcome is going to be. I love structure, organization and a smooth path to follow. Writing doesn't always fall into those categories, but I am sure going to try.

I have spent the last week working on my latest writing item- Winter Writing Prompts and Craftivity. I am so excited to get back into the classroom and use it with my students.

This packet is Common Core aligned for grades K-4 and comes with a hot cocoa craftivity!

It includes writing prompts for opinion, narrative and informative writing as well as graphic organizers to help generate ideas for each prompt. I have included CC standards posters for each grade level to post next to student work. 

In my classroom, I am going to choose one writing prompt to focus on and display them with the hot cocoa craftivity that is included in the packet.

Then, I am going to take the other writings we complete from the packet and bind them together in individual  student books. This helps me to stay organized (their writing is all in one place) and it shows growth over time.  This helps me with grading, report cards, conferences and I can add it to their student portfolios. Rubrics, and checklists are included in the packet, as well as individual and class book covers. I hope you can find it useful in your classroom too!

If you haven't already entered my 200+ follower giveaway, click on the picture below to enter. There are some fun prizes that you can hopefully use in your classroom.

As I finish writing this post, the hubby and kids have woken up and want some breakfast! My oldest wants to play a family game of Phase 10, so off I go! Enjoy your day everyone!

Welcome Winter Sale

Happy winter everyone! We survived the world coming to an end! To celebrate, I am linking up with Casey from Second Grade Math Maniac for a Welcome Winter SALE! Everything in my TpT store will be 20% off December 21st-23rd! What a great way to grab some of those items that have been on your wishlist!

Would you like an adorable craftivity to share with your students when you get back from the holidays? Check out my New Year's Resolution Writing Activity and Class book. Your students can write about their New Year's Resolutions and make these cutie pies:

All templates, graphic organizers, writing pages and directions are included. I can't wait to make these with my students when we get back.

If you would like to bring winter inside your classroom, these Let It Snow, Snowman Glyphs will surely do the trick.

Writing paper, glyph directions and questions, data collection sheets and all templates are included to complete this project.

Join in the fun and link up for this incredible Welcome Winter Blog Hop SALE! 

Poppin' with Descriptive Writing

I have been wanting to post about descriptive writing in my classroom for awhile now. However, so many things seemed to be happening in my class with the holidays and then the events of the past few days in CT.  It was put on the back burner. But now seems a good time as any to write about it. This year I have done a few mini lessons on descriptive sentences with my second graders. They seem to understand the concept during the lessons, but have difficulty applying the idea during our unit writings. A couple weeks ago, I read my kids the book If You Take A Mouse To the Movies. I wanted to use the book as a spring board into descriptive writing again. I decided to break the idea of descriptive words and writing into a week of mini lessons with my students. On the first day, I brought in a wrapped box which looked like this:

My students asked a TON of questions about it. Who brought it? What is it for? Can we open it? They went on and on. I love seeing their eyes light up in wonder. I told them we would be working all week on descriptive writing and making our sentences more interesting to read. We created a whole class chart with adjectives and descriptive phrases about what the "present" looked like. Then the students completed their response sheet.

The next day we opened our class "present" and saw that there was a box of POPCORN inside! The kids were not sure what to think at first. But when I put the popcorn in the microwave and turned off the lights, they got very quiet. I told them we would be using our five senses to describe our experience with our popcorn. I wanted them to focus on what they could hear and smell while the popcorn was cooking. We created a class chart again and began writing words that came to their minds which described their experience. After, they each got a cup of popcorn. They touched it, looked at it and tasted it. We added more descriptive words to our chart and they choose a few words to write on their response sheet.

Next, I introduced the concept of similes to my students. We made a whole class chart describing what the popcorn felt like in our mouths and compared it to other experiences in their lives.

Then my students wrote their own similes and drew pictures to go with them. To finish out our week of mini lessons, the kids used all our class charts to write descriptive sentences about their popcorn experience. Here is an example from one student:

After they wrote their sentences they each made a popcorn box to go with it and wrote different descriptive words on each kernel to describe their experience. Many of my students wrote their own sentences and I had a few of my students who were struggling with ideas so they used this template.

My students really seemed to embrace these lessons. I think focusing on all five senses and making the experience hands on really hit home with them. The whole class charts were also great visuals and references for the kids during their writing time.If you would like to grab a copy of these week long lessons, just click on the image below and you can grab it from my TpT shop. Each day has a description of the lesson, example pictures and variety of student response sheets to meet your classroom needs.

I hope you and your students will enjoy learning about descriptive writing and how to make sentences more interesting to read with these activities. 

Now more than ever, I realize how blessed I am to be a teacher. To be able to touch the lives of my students and their families and embrace each child for who they are is not something everyone gets to experience. It is our job as educators to protect and nurture each child and treat them as the gift that they are.

FREEBIE Holiday Gift Idea and ONE WEEK LEFT!

And yet another week just flew by! There are just not enough hours in each day to get everything done. This week we started a ton of projects. Some were completed and some we are still working on. One of my students favorite projects were these cute little guys:

I read my kids If You Take A Mouse To the Movies. And we used some of the adorable ideas from Nancy at First Grade Wow's unit. She has this amazing freebie with tons of ideas. Click here to take you to her unit.

The kids wrote about what they would want if you took them to the movies.

Hanukkah starts Saturday night, so we read a few Hanukkah stories this week and did a little taste testing of latkes. The kids were so excited to try these:

 My sweet teaching assistant made all these latkes for the kids to try. We gave each student a potato pancake, applesauce and sour cream. I asked the kids to try them plain, and with each of the toppings. Then we graphed our favorite ways to eat them. Here is our graph:

To my surprise most of the kids liked them with applesauce AND sour cream! Next, we analyzed our data and tallied our results. We also completed a few math problems about our data. They kids loved the activity!

The kids were most excited to complete their holiday gift for their parents. We made this adorable project that we called Watch Me Grow. Each student got a plastic (frosting tub size) container. I bought them from the 99 cent Store. We taped  the Watch Me Grow label to it.

Then we added beans.

Next, each student cut out "flowers" for each grade level (kinder-5th) and taped a tongue depressor to each one.

I taped their second grade school picture to the the second grade circle. Once the parents receive their gift, they can add pictures to the other grade levels. We wrapped them in decorated lunch bags and taped them closed. There you have it folks-the simplest, most adorable parent gift around! Grab your template for this project by clicking here. I hope you can use this idea in your class. It would also make a great Mother's Day gift. Enjoy!

December Currently- OH MY!

The last month of the year-REALLY???? Unbelievable! Where has the time gone? I am linking up with Farley for this month's Currently.

Thinking about people and showing appreciation for them when they least expect it is the best form of flattery sometimes. There is a teacher at my school who anonymously leaves sweet gifts in people's boxes for no reason every once in awhile throughout the school year. When she "hits" me, I always know its her and quietly thank her. She never says anything-just a big smile. I love that! I want to do the same thing for different staff members too. Just a little something to lift the spirits. So many crazy things are happening in our school district. Morale is in the toilet to put it mildly. I think letting my colleagues know they are appreciated will help put a spring in their step even if it is just for a brief moment in time. 

Link up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade and share your Random Acts of Kindness. I can't wait to read all of them!

Two Freebies and Some Snowmen

I don't know about you- but I am so glad it is the weekend! This past week was nutty and I need to wrap my brain around the idea that today is the first day of December. We wrapped up our extremely over scheduled week with a few fun activities. We read the story There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bell by Lucille Colandro. After we read the story, the kids sequenced the story events.

Then, they made the old lady and wrote about one of their favorite parts of the story.

And we put them up for display in our classroom.

You can grab your FREEBIE copy of this activity by clicking on the picture below.

I also just finished my Hanukkah Literacy Activities unit. I love teaching the kids about all different holidays and cultures. I wanted to share a little FREEBIE worksheet that you could use to review Hanukkah terms with your kiddos. Just click on the picture to grab your copy.

If you would like some more ideas to teach Hanukkah, check out my Hanukkah packet I just posted.

I know some of us are not allowed to use specific holiday activities, so I created these adorable snowman glyphs that you could make with your class. I am going to make these will my kids when we return from winter break but I know some of you would like them now.

The glyph packet includes all the templates, writing pages and data collection sheets you need to complete the project. You can grab your copy at my TpT store. Just click on the picture below.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Ginger Cookies and the Festival of Lights

Oh my goodness! I cannot believe it is almost Friday! I thought for sure this first week back after having a week off would go by so S-L-O-W, instead it flew by. We were very busy this week getting started on all of our holiday activities.

We continued our gingerbread unit with some tasty writing. Each student was given one gingerbread cookie that they COULD NOT eat! Boy, was that hard for a few of them.

First, we used our senses of sight, touch and smell to fill out our gingerbread chart. The kids gave me adjectives to describe the cookie. Here is our chart:

Then, I told the kids to take one bite of their cookie and put it down! What? You said one bite? That's right! I wanted to graph where they each took their first bite of their cookie. Today we wrote about our gingerbread cookie experience and used some of Lori's activities in her freebie gingerbread unit. (Click on the picture to grab a copy). They used so many adjectives to "pump up" their writing. It was great to see how excited they were to put their ideas down on paper.

Next week, we are going to start our Hanukkah unit. I love teaching the kids about different cultures and holidays. Hanukkah is a great one to teach the kids about because we get to eat potato pancakes (latkes), play games (dreidel) and learn new traditions. The kids love it! I just finished putting together these literacy and writing activities which we will be using throughout the week.

We are going to taste latkes and graph how we like to eat them and do some data analysis with our information. We are going to work on main idea and details with the story Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel. Each student will make a menorah. The middle candle (shammes) will have the main idea and the other candles will have the details on it. (You can use the menorah patterns for any Hanukkah story). Here is a sample:

If you would like a few activities to help introduce Hanukkah to your students, click HERE to check out this little unit.

What are you doing in your classroom to celebrate the holidays? I would love to hear your ideas. Have a great Friday!

Gingerbread Glyphs and A Few Hours Left

I don't know about you, but these first two days back to work have been C-R-A-Z-Y! I want to get all our holiday project underway so we can enjoy them before we have to take them down and go on winter break. Three weeks is nothing! We've got a lot to do people!!

Today we got to work on our gingerbread glyphs. The kids love these projects. I never tell them what we are going to be making. I try to see how long it takes them to figure it out. Here they are answering the questions on their white boards.

Next, they started assembling their glyphs depending on how they answered the questions.

Once their glyphs were assembled, we did some whole class data collection. Here are a couple of examples.

To display the glyphs, I decided to make a cookie jar on one of my interior classroom doors. Some of the gingerbread men are jumping out of the cookie jar, while others are happy as can be to be inside the jar!

The kids were cracking up as they were gluing the eyes on. Some kids were very traditional, while others were goofy as can be. I love their creativity!

If this is a project you would like to do with your class, just click on the picture below and grab your copy while it is still in sale at TpT!

I also have the gingerbread men activity in my Gingerbread Fun Literacy Centers (It does not include the data collecting sheets). It includes writing prompts and primary and intermediate writing papers. Click on the pic below if you are interested. It is still on sale at TpT as well!

I hope everyone was able to get their TpT wishlist filled these last two days! But if not, there is still time to shop! I have a couple things I still need to get before the night is over, too!

Incredible SALES and "An Old Lady Who..." FREEBIE

I hope each of you had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving with your family and friends.  I want to share some pics of our Thanksgiving table.

My mom and my two boys colored each of the place mats and then we laminated them. My mom always does something creative to make the table festive!

Dessert was this beautiful home made apple tart. So delicious! Thanks, Mom!

Today I am off to conquer the shopping world bright and early with my mom and sister in law. It's a tradition in our family for the women to go shopping and out to lunch on Black Friday,while the men bond with the wee ones. I LOVE this day and look forward to it ALL year! Who knows what I will come back home with!

I am so excited to be participating in the Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers sales this weekend! This Saturday, Sunday and Monday everything will be on sale in my TN store. TN is also giving an extra 10% off for those 3 days! Click on the picture below to take you to my store so you can load up your cart and then check out on the sale dates!

                        

I will also have all my items on sale at my TpT store this Monday and Tuesday! TpT is also giving an additional 10% off, if you use the promo code: CMT12 during checkout.

I have just add several literacy units for the holidays and winter season. I hope you will check them out and load up during these fabulous sales!

To get everyone in the holiday spirit, I have a little FREEBIE I want to share with each of you. I just bought the book There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bell to add to my class library for the holidays. It is such a cute book and I can't wait to share it with my kids. I created two activities to go with it. The first is a sequencing activity. After you read the book to the kids, they can color, cut and paste the story events in the correct order.

The next activity is a writing activity where the kids will color and cut out the old lady and then write and draw about one of the things she swallowed and why.

You can grab your freebie copy of these activities at my TpT store by clicking on the picture below.

Thanks for taking the time to read, follow and leave sweet comments on my little blog. I love sharing my ideas with you and want to thank each of you for helping fill my world of teaching with such joy. I appreciate all of you!