1. If you've read my previous two posts (here and here) you'll know that my kidlets and I have been enjoying a whole heap of Christmas fun this past week! Things got slightly confusing the past few days, though, when we made 2 types of cookie - on edible, one not! The first was sugar cookies that we decorated to look like a Christmas bauble (i.e. how many lollies can we pile on before they fall off!).
The second was salt dough star shaped tree ornaments!
Turns out holiday themed activities can be dangerous - one of my kidlets tried to eat the peppermint scented playdough the other day as well! Luckily neither the salt dough nor the playdough are toxic, they just don't taste very good. :)
2. What do you get when you combine the Creation Station with extra space and extra glitter? A huge mess and lots of happy kidlets! I just loved their creative projects and big smiles... the time it took me to clean up - not so much!
3. Gotta love a freebie! The pocket chart was well used this week with Crayon and Whimsy's Colorful Gingerbread Men pack.
4. I honestly think the most fun my kidlets have had in their Reading groups this year was with a game that I made to revise sight words. I called it 'Naughty or Nice' and the idea is simple - draw a card with a sight word (and a gift) on it and you get to read and keep it, draw a lump of coal and everyone says "uh oh!" Your cards then go back into the playing pile. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins! I wish I could show you the HUGE grins on the faces of my kidlets as they played this (in their group time and then again in literally ANY free time they had). I'm really not sure why they loved it so much - maybe because it was Christmas themed, maybe because the lumps of coal had them in fits of laughter - either way, I'll definitely be bringing it out earlier next year! I've made this game into a Dolch Pre-Primer, Primer and First Grade versions in my TpT Store. :)
5. We have our last day of Prep on Tuesday. One lovely boy brought in an early Christmas gift that made me all teary. He and his mum chose the words that were stamped into the keyring - I feel so honoured that they choose these three words to represent the year that they have spent with me. :)
That's about all from me today... I'm off to read more of my new book - a real book just waiting for me to go and read it! I'm so glad that my planning/teaching/reporting is done for this year so I have time to read and relax. 1 day of concert practice and a half day of Christmas partying and I'm all done for 2013. :)
Lauren
Your beautiful key ring made me smile! :-) And your adorable kids. Looks like you are wrapping up the year with some awesome fun! Oh, and I think everyone has to learn the salt dough/playdough lesson at least once...LOL
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The Craft of Teaching
Love that key ring! So sweet!
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