Rockin' Reindeers FREEBIE!

Horray!  It's nearly December!
Can you believe how fast November flew by?  I still can't believe that in a few weeks we will be off for Christmas Break (a well-deserved one, too!).
 
I have a volunteer in my classroom a few times a week...wait....let me stress what an AMAZING artist she is!  I know I have mentioned Ms. Josie in other posts but the wall art she put up is truly fabulous.
And she made all the cute pictures FREE-HAND!
Yes, if it were me I would have pulled out the old overhead projector, photocopied some clip art onto transparencies and started tracing, painting and cutting. 
But not Ms. Josie.
She whipped these pictures up in no time!
I just love the reindeer wearing earmuffs - he's my favourite!
 
 
I told her to open up a clip art store so other teachers can purchase her amazing stuff and use it for TpT units.  She's a pro on the computer too!
What do you think?
 
I've made this cute little reindeer craft before.  I found it online years ago and don't know where it came from!  I'd love to give credit!
It looks like a TLC art activity.  I love the way they all come out a little differently.
 

 
I had all the shapes pre-cut and the students simply followed my direction in gluing the pieces in the correct order/spot.  Easy and so much fun!
Plus it makes for a great Christmas display!
 
Here is the rest of the wall that Ms. Josie created for us.
 
 
You can click here for a copy of the reindeer craft - please excuse my hand drawn instructions.  My computer was giving me a hard time so I just scanned it in.
 
Horray.....TGIF ... almost!


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Cyber Monday {and Tuesday} sale

I am sooo jealous of all of you who got to enjoy deep discounts and savings for Black Friday.
There is no such thing as Black Friday in Canada.
Well, let me refresh that...
stores here "say" they are having Black Friday sales but that usually means just saving the tax, no big-time savings let me tell you!
 
Thank you, Ashley, for creating this cute image!
So that's why I am so excited and am gearing up for Cyber Monday tomorrow!
I'm joining in on the TpT sale by offering all of my items 20% off both Monday and Tuesday.
And if you use the coupon code "CMT12" at checkout you will get an additional 10% off!
 
 
It's full of lots of fun things for the holidays!
And if you are looking for other ideas for the winter months, be sure to check out these fun things I created!
My Winter Wonderland unit was on the Best-Sellers list last winter for 3-weeks in a row!
 
 
 And my best-selling Write the Room - The Complete Set (which includes both a Christmas and Winter Write the Room activity plus LOTS more!) will also be on sale for an incredible price!
 
I'm definitely not going to miss out on this big sale....so I'm off to fill my shopping cart on TpT!
Happy shopping! 


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My l-o-n-g week...and THE doll!

I had the l-o-n-g-e-s-t week ever!
So my sincere apologies for not posting earlier this week and wishing all my Blogger friends in the USA a very Happy Thanksgiving!
I know we aren't celebrating here in Canada (although, to tell you the truth, I could really use a few days off to spend with my family - who doesn't like that?) I am hoping that all of you are enjoying the weekend...and any Black Friday shopping (again....jealous!).

I am so very thankful for the wonderful friends I have made over the past year.  We not only share the same profession but we have so many other things in common and we just "click".
It's so nice having such great friends!
 
My husband and I were away last weekend in Chicago with his partners from work and their wives.
What a beautiful city!!!
I've never been there before but I had the best.time.ever!
The shopping is, by far, much better than here! 
I HAD to buy my daughter an American Girl.
I first discovered this store last summer when we were in NYC.  Honestly, I thought it wasn't real.  We were making our way through the 8 levels of the store only to find a "Doll Hospital" (if your doll's arm, say, falls off!), a "Hair Salon" where for just $20 you can give your doll a full hair do, and an entire section devoted to shoes....for the DOLL!
But I totally got suckered in this time while I was walking through the Chicago store....don't judge me, please! HA!
I found a doll that looks JUST LIKE my daughter and, since she's now 4, I thought she would love it (she better since it wasn't cheap!).
Her face absolutely lit up when I gave it to her and it's now become her best friend.
(Thank goodness or my husband would really have killed me for buying it!)
 
Anyways, back to my week.  So after returning from that great weekend getaway, I was beat!
And I had to go straight back to work.
And I'm still beat from the weekend!
But to top it off, last night at school was Parent-Teacher interviews.  I stayed until nearly 9:30 last night so today was H.A.R.D to get through!
I'm so very glad it's the weekend!
 
Here's a look at what we did this week.  We're just about done with our Bear theme.  I loved teaching my kinders about Bears!
 
Sight word practice
 
Beginning sounds
 
My kinders LOVE these type of games....spin, count and colour!
 
Identifying shapes
 
Completing our own Brown Bear book by filling in the missing colour words.
(I have had this booklet for years, don't know where it originated from, so if you do, please let me know so I can give credit!)
 
My JK's are getting really good at reading sight words!
I had them practice with this emergent reader I made.  They circled the sight word "little" and coloured the bear the matching colour.
They were so excited when they got to 'read' it to a friend!
 
Here is a picture of all the Kindergarten teachers dressed up in pajamas for our Teddy Bear Picnic last week.  I work with amazing ladies....Mrs. Linigari, Mrs. Parisi, and Ms. Laface.
It's so nice going to work and having wonderful friends to spend the day with!
 
You can find all of these activities (except the Brown Bear fill-in-the-blank booklet) in my Bears Literacy and Math Activities unit on TpT.
 
Fill you shopping carts on TpT and get ready for Cyber Monday (and Tuesday) this coming week!
Everything in my store will be 20% with an additional 10% off (for a total of 28% off!) by using code CMT12.
 
 
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!



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Fun with bears FREEBIE....and look what I got!


I know it's only Thursday but we have had a fun week so far!  And tomorrow's Teddy Bear Picnic is a perfect way to wrap up the week!
 
Since we are learning all about measuring things using non-standard units (like unifix cubes, yarn, paper clips, etc.) I thought it would be fun to measure ourselves....using HONEY POTS!
Yup, you read that correctly.
I made these little honey pots to tie into our bear theme and after partnering the students and having them measure each other, they completed this fun worksheet.
 
I love how this little kinder made his hair stand up straight so that the honey pots would reach the top of his head!
 
You can download this activity (complete with honey pots and worksheet) for free here.
 
Also.......look what came in the mail for me yesterday!
These cute aprons, chef hats and detective hats were sent to me by one of my bloggie BFF's,
She has a great new unit out called Solano's Pizzeria Pizza Unit.  Can you say a-dor-a-ble!!!
I am going to be uding this unit in a few weeks, you know, that stretch at the end of November/beginning of December?  This unit has so many great activities that the kids will just love everything...especially while wearing these new aprons and hats!
Check out her unit here.
 
Tanya also has other great TpT products...here is a emergent reader my little JK students did today while in reading groups.
They picked up the sight words "I" and "see" so quickly and loved that they could read the colour words on each page.
You can find this reader by clicking here.
She even has a pocket chart story that goes with the reader.
 
Our Kindergarten team uses a 2-year plan for our themes, units and activities that we follow.  That's because the JK and SK curriculum is one document and although we may teach the same thing, our expectations are different.  And when the JK's get to SK, they aren't doing the same themes or learning the same things that they learned the year before. 
Last fall, we studied Nursery Rhymes at this time of year.  I finally got around to combining all of those activities into one big unit on TpT.
You can check it out here.
 
 
I'd love to give this unit away to the first 3 lucky people.
Leave me a comment below telling me your favourite nursery rhyme and don't forget to leave me your e-mail address!
 
I'm off to wrap up my notes for Parent-Teacher interviews next week.  Have a great night!
 

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Bring on the Bears!

Is it just me or are there any other Canadian teachers out there that could really use a Thanksgiving weekend off!
Where did my weeekend go?  Today during our Morning Routine, we were discussing the fact that today is Monday and we were all home on Saturday and Sunday (for the weekend).  One of my little guys said, "Why do we only stay home for 2 days, we should stay home for 5 days and go to school for 2 days!"
YES!!!!  Now you're talking!
I say this child runs for politics!
 
Last week was Peace Week in our class.  I have done this for the second year in a row now and I have to tell you, what a difference it makes in our classroom!  I'm trying to keep it going this week too!
During Peace Week, I read the story Peace Week in Miss Fox's Class.
 
We talk about what it means to be peacemakers and colour a little "person" to put up on our Religion wall.  Every time I hear the students saying something nice to another or playing nicely with each other, I reward him or her with a sticker.  Let me tell you, LOTS of stickers were given out last week!
 
 
You can read more about Peace Week from my post last year.  Click here to see it.
 
We also made these Remembrance Day poppies on crosses using rolled up tissue paper.  This is a picture of the display in front of Mrs. Parisi's class.
 
This week we introduced our Bears Theme.  It comes complete with a full blown Pajama Party at the end of it - Bear Paw treats, bear crowns, teddy bears everywhere, the WORKS!  That will be happening later on this week.  In the meantime, we worked on these fun things!
 
We labeled the bear (sorry - I can't seem to get these pictures to turn!).  And then the students worked on this....
Label-a-bear
 
We worked on patterning - AB and ABC patterns.
 
We measured different bears using unifix cubes and recorded our answers.
 
Putting the numbers in order from 1-10.
 
Lots more coming up on bears!  We are just getting started!
You can find these activities and a WHOLE lot more in my Bears Literacy and Math unit on TpT.
 
 

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S is for Scarecrows!

Fall is definitely here...it's been getting colder and colder, though, that I'm hoping my next blog post won't say "winter is here"!
With Halloween over, we started on our mini unit, Scarecrows!
 
Here's what we are doing this week during our centre time.
 
I don't know what it is about magnifying glasses - my students absolutely LOVE to use them!
The students used the magnifying glasses to read the hidden sight words in the hay and circle them in the appropriate colour.
 
At this centre, students put a smiley face in the box if the picture started with an "s" sound.  If it didn't, they put a frown.
 
I teach a JK/SK split class (equivalent to Pre-K, K split) and so some activities are tailored to my JK needs.  This centre was all about rolling the colour die and colouring in the corn the correct colour.
 
Here is our Pocket Chart activity for the week.  It's such a hit!  They can all do this centre independenly because it's based on repetitive texts and the worksheets all follow the same pattern of circling the sight words and/or writing them in, colouring the picture to match, and writing/finding the colour words.  You can find this activity in my best-selling All Year Long Pocket Chart Fun packet on TpT.
 
 This is our Write the Room centre for the week - all about Fall!
I hid these leaves all around the room (they have Fall words on them, like scarecrow, perfect for this week!) and the kids go on a hunt around the room and find them.  Then they record their answers on a worksheet.  I chose this worksheet for the week since it's all about finding certain words that match and reading simple sentences.
 
I have this game all set up to play tomorrow.  You turn over the scarecrow and read the sight word.  If you can read it, you keep it as a point for your team (I split my class in half or your can kids play individually).  If you get the crow, you must put all your words back.  After I introduce this and we play it as a whole group, I will put it out as one of my centres during my Literacy Block.
 
All of the above activities (except the Pocket Chart and Write the Room activities) can be found in my new unit, Scarecrows Literacy and Math Activities, on TpT.

 
Be sure to check back soon and read about Peace Week in our classroom!


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