Teacher by the Beach

Just wanted to let you know of my latest pack!

When I get back in January, I'm going to be spending the first week using the Snowmen books by Caralyn Buehner:

If you have any of my "cat" activity packs (Splat the Cat or Pete the Cat), this pack is a lot like those...I like to keep it similar, so my students become more independent.

Included is:

Story Structure - different versions; INB or whole page!
Summarizing - planning pages and writing pages!
Describing Snowmen - character analysis or actual snowmen
Cause and Effect - can be used for any of the books!
How Does the Character Change?
Compare and Contrast Stories
Evaluation
Sentence Building - unscramble the sentences and write them out (I love using these for centers!)
Writing activities - there are 3 different kinds!!
- What you would do with your snowmen all year

- how to build a snowman

- or what snowmen do at night

Planning pages; circle/brainstorming map and linear style
Writing - recording pages horizontal and vertical options
Snowman craft!

The craft can be used in a few different ways - just the head, with writing, as a topper, etc...

The craft is a non-tracer craft. I have come to LOVE these kinds of crafts. Give it a whirl! Your kids will become GREAT at it! Plus it really helps with their ability to follow directions and help with their math concepts and spatial sense.

Check it out {HERE}.

~~I'd love to give a copy of it away! Comment below with how the weather is where you live...because right now?? We're about mid-high 70s. NOT snowmen friendly weather, AT. ALL.~~

~~I will pick a winner on Tuesday Night!~~

~~(p.s. For another chance - go to my FACEBOOK page to enter over there!)~~

December is CRAZY busy.... for real.

And now that I have TWO kids in school, it feels even crazier.

But, it's also my favorite time of year in the classroom - my room SCREAMS Christmas and I LOVE it!! I am always sad when I have to take it all down.

Here is the Literature quilt we did - the idea came from {HERE}....and of course we I used The Polar Express.

And we finished our Gingerbread Week...

I did a twist on Deanna's Gingerbread craft - it's a non-tracer craft! I added some buttons and bows and hats so they could write out their lost description....

Find more Gingerbread activities in my Mini Unit

Here are some of the Gingerbread Man Books I like to use..

We did our reindeer week - I used some of Stephanie's GREAT {non-fiction unit}

We wrote out some facts about reindeer... and we did the non-tracer craft from {Teacher Bits and Bobs}. They turn out SO cute!

One day...or two or three... was spent making these number sense trees.

You can download these {HERE} for free.

They look so cute hanging in my hallway....even the crooked one, which may or may not be driving me crazy to have in this picture, but oh well.

Below the trees are the Elf Applications that I LOVE doing!

We read the book The Littlest Elf.

Then talked about what kind of traits elves should have to get to work in Santa's Workshops.

Then they wrote out their applications.

The application is a freebie I found LONG time ago from {First Grade Parade} and the Elf is another NON-tracer craft from {Teacher Bits and Bobs}.

We had our Theme Day that I posted about the other day. I only did 5 of the 10 stations I posted about - check out that post {HERE}.

Here are the trees we did - we added some snow to them, so pretty!

And we did the reindeer hat craft.

Silly reindeer games.

One day, we read Who Will Guide My Sleigh Tonight.

We did a quick little "I tried a ___________, but _______________."

We did our Storybook Sleigh Ride with our team, where each teacher picks a book to read and does a craft and our kids rotate through all the teachers. We do it over 2 days. My book was Santa's Stuck.