Happy New Year!

The teacher across the hall did this little craft and writing activity which I thought was amazing!!!  She bought plastic gold Christmas ornaments for 50% off at the after Christmas sales and look at the idea SHE came up with!!!  She tied the ornaments onto a piece of clear string and paper punched a hole midway down the page.  The students wrote 2014, decorated the sheet with confetti and wrote about their new year.  The string can be manipulated to show the ball dropping!  WOW!  I am sure her students loved this activity and my students are just wishing that they could do this too!  Believe me, next year I will be looking for those little plastic balls.  Happy 2014!

Winter Fun!

We finally had our first big snow of the season a couple of weeks ago and the students were so, so excited!  We had a great unit focusing on How to Make a Snowman and we also wrote Snowy Day stories.  I have been trying to get the students to use "fancy first grade words" in their writing so I created an activity to encourage them to use adjectives.  I read All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle.  We then made a list of things a snowman needs.  The students had to add a describing word to each thing.  For example, All you need for a snowman is.....
a fuzzy scarf,
brass buttons,
and a carrot nose.
But most of all you
need soft, purple earmuffs!
The students came up with a variety of different items and every child's writing turned out so unique!  The hallway is decorated with the cute snowman crafts and even though the snow has long since melted, we have our snowman to help keep the winter fun alive!

We also had a great time making snow globes of our favorite winter activities using plastic plates to add a 3-D look.  This activity was Pinterest inspired and a quick classroom favorite!
Now, I am on the countdown until spring!

Snowman Crafts

 Each year I like to have the students make something for their families for the holidays.  Snowmen are always a favorite because we are all eagerly waiting to build a real one as soon as the first snowfall appears!  This year we are painting small flowerpots white, and then adding buttons, a ribbon scarf, a foam ball for the head and a little hat. 
      I also wanted to share a picture of the paint roller snowman a teacher gave me a couple of years ago.  It is just simply a paint roller, with buttons, a fleece scarf and hat and twig arms.  Now we just need a major winter storm (instead of RAIN) to build our most favorite snowman of all...one made of SNOW!