Winter Wonderland


Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
I woke up this morning to SO.MUCH.SNOW!  Yah!
I love it when it snows and I am at home!  Hence, I need to emphasize HOME!

I have been busy this past week finishing up my
Winter Wonderland unit, just in time for the snow!

You can check it out here.
I have jam-packed so much stuff into this unit...it's really cute!  I think you and your students will love it!
Inside you will find an original story (sung to Jingle Bells), lots of graphing activities, a booklet on the 5 Senses in the Winter, so many games for both literacy and math centres and lots more!

Click on the picture for your *freebie*.

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The Mixed-Up Cookies!

So I don't know about you but I L.O.V.E. the holidays because of the sweets!  Yes, I have been eating my little heart away this holiday season...gingerbread, shortbread cookies, rumballs, sugar-coated almonds...the list goes on and on!

That's when I got to thinking of this cute game for my kiddies to play when we go back in January, so I whipped something up (mind the pun!). 
The Mixed-Up Cookies game is so easy to assemble and play.  I'm sure you have an empty cookie jar or tin from the holidays that you can use to store the pieces (kinder kids just love things in cute containers, don't you find?).  Your students simply have to choose 2 consonant cookies (which are snowflakes) and 1 vowel cookie (which are stars) and see if a simple CVC word can be made.  I have included an easy to work with recording sheet too!


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Christmas Fun and a Penguin freebie!

Merry Christmas everyone! (Yes, I know I am a few days late, but keep reading and you will see why!)
We *FINALLY* finished for the holidays this past Friday and then before I knew it, Christmas was here!  I thought I would like finishing so late because it would give me a nice break in January.....well, ask me in January!  All I can say right now is I.AM.EXHAUSTED!

Sorry that I am posting this WAY after we did this (which was mid-December) but our Christmas crafts came out so cute!


This is the Rudolph bag.  We put all of our crafts inside of it to carry home.

This is our popsicle stick ornament.  Thank goodness that I had some Grade 8 helpers - we needed the glue gun to hold it all together!

 
This is our Christmas card.  It was so easy to make and looked beautiful!

This picture is hard to see - sorry!  It is our 5 Little Snowmen ornament we made using our hand!
So cute!

This is the poem and the saying (on the back) that we attached to each snowman ornament.  My teaching partner, Ms. Angelucci, found this craft and I LOVED it!  So did the parents!

Thank goodness it`s the winter break!
I think we all need (and deserve) a little time with our family and ourselves!
But before we know it (`cause this happens every year!) January will be here and that means...snowmen and penguins and mittens...oh, my!
So I`m getting ready for our penguin unit and thought I would share this little freebie that I made.

Click on the picture to download.

Please leave me a comment if you do download it...it`s nice to hear what you all have to say!

One more (* very important*) thing...
I have been awarded the Sunshine Award 2011 by my sweet (*Canadian*) blogger friend, Anita, at
Mrs. Bremer`s Kindergarten
Thank you Anita!  Be sure to stop by and visit her blog for some fabulous ideas!

Thanks for following my blog...happy holidays!


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A Snowman Freebie!

I am so excited to be hosting TBA's 25 Days of Gifts today with
I'm getting ready for a snowfall we are supposed to have early next week so I thought I would create a reader all about snowmen.  But first....

Oh my WORD!  Two more weeks of school!  We have sooo many things to do still!  Ahhh!
Half of the school (*including us, the Senior Kindergarten class*) is putting on a Christmas Play, Give, the last week of schoolIt's to raise awareness of the poor living conditions in parts of Africa, specifically the Horn of Africa region.  We have been practising our song and dance each day, in addition to creating Christmas crafts and, oh yah, doing our work!  HA!  Let me tell you - it's a VERY busy time for us.  Did I mention it was craft day yesterday!  More to come on that later.

I thought I would share this little freebie for you.  I know many of you only have this last week of school before the break.  I love teaching about all things winter (including snowmen!) in the new year.

Here is a teacher big book and an emergent reader for your students all about snowmen. 
If you download it, please leave feedback! 
It's so important for me to hear from you and let me know what you think.
I love creating my own books to read to my students and then having each of them read and colour their own copy.
I hope you find this useful too!

Click on the picture to download.
Enjoy the rest of the week (or two) you have before the break!
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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!


My kinders worked like little elves this week, getting our classroom ready for Christmas!  I know it's still early but...yesterday we had our first snowfall! 
It definitely put me in a festive mood!

I wanted to share some of the activities we worked on this week. 

Here is our Write the Room Christmas activity.  I have various theme words scattered around the classroom for the kids to find and write on worksheets.  It's a great way to introduce new themes.  This was such a hit!


We made this cute handprint Santa and Christmas tree (which tied in so nicely with our unit on Spatial Relationships as we reviewed words like top, middle, bottom).  This idea came from Victoria in Kinder Korner.



We played Roll a Number game by matching numbers on a gingerbread man with bingo dabbers.

*Click on the picture of the gingerbread man for your FREE download of this game*


Here are some of the kiddies playing Silly Snake.  It's such a cute game where you roll the dice, match the game piece and try to build the longest snake.  All of these math activities were so much fun - and I love how my students are getting to know their numbers to 10!

Finally we wrapped up our Nursery Rhymes unit.  I can't believe how well the kids did reciting all of the rhymes!  We made this fun, tactile book too!

So glad it's Friday tomorrow!  We are getting ready for our Christmas craft day next week so be sure to check back for updates on that fun day!

Psssst......you have until Midnight tonight to purchase all of my units and activities in my TpT store at 20% off! 
Hurry on over there and check it out!

Happy teaching!

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