It has been a fast and furious December for sure! I have been on the go all month long AND we are trying to get our house on the market in two weeks. I definitely won't be having much of a break this year! December was a special and fun month in my classroom. Here are a few lots of pictures...
One of my favorite Christmas classroom traditions is our elf on the shelf, Ellie. We even had an elf pet reindeer this year named Oliver. Oliver was really special because we could actually touch him. We loved looking for Ellie each morning and seeing the silly things that she did! Here are a few of my favorite Ellie moments...
She arrived in a sleigh accompanied by Oliver.
Ellie even inspired some writing!
I love making GIANT interactive writing. It just makes it fun for the kids and I also send it home with someone after it has been displayed a while.
I also sent a paper elf home with each child for them to disguise! They are so creative!
This elf hid in the popcorn.
We also learned about reindeer and of course I had to make a large interactive writing.
This precious reindeer craft we made to go with our writing was from A Cupcake for the Teacher and you can find it HERE.
And I can't resist a hand print ornament...
We even made my favorite peppermint play dough! This is always a hit! : )
I just found the recipe on Pinterest and doubled it.
For our Christmas activity, each of my kids got to decorate their own Christmas tree! I have an amazing room mom who pulled everything off! The trees came from Hobby Lobby and I found the tiny light strands at Dollar Tree for a dollar of course. I pinned each child's name to Santa hat for the topper. I bought the Santa hats 90% off last year after Christmas at Target! Hoarding pays off ; ) We asked parents to send the ornaments.
Everyone also made a Santa sack for all of their party goodies.
I wasn't at school the day of the Christmas party, which just about killed me! We had a party in Dallas for my husband's new company. It was so fancy and lots of fun!
One of my favorite Christmas classroom traditions is our elf on the shelf, Ellie. We even had an elf pet reindeer this year named Oliver. Oliver was really special because we could actually touch him. We loved looking for Ellie each morning and seeing the silly things that she did! Here are a few of my favorite Ellie moments...
She arrived in a sleigh accompanied by Oliver.
She found her place in the alphabet!
She is a Texas Tech fan too!
She made friends with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and...
Pete the Cat!
She built a Christmas tree out of our math manipulatives!
We even found her in the refrigerator one day!
Ellie even inspired some writing!
"Ellie loves Santa. Ellie is kind and she loves the other elves."
Here is our interactive writing about Ellie.
We also applied to become elves...
I also sent a paper elf home with each child for them to disguise! They are so creative!
This elf was disguised as Elsa. Let it go, let it gooooo...
This elf dressed as a penguin.
This elf hid in a Starbucks cup!
We also made a Christmas count down chain for math. We counted how many nights until Christmas and then put that many loops on the chain. Each night they tear of one loop. The star at the top has a cute little poem that tells parents what to do. This activity is also perfect for working on those fine motor skills and patterning!
We also worked hard on building numbers to 30. I used these Christmas Tree counting mats all month! They were great to use with manipulatives or play dough!
We made reindeer dioramas too.
This precious reindeer craft we made to go with our writing was from A Cupcake for the Teacher and you can find it HERE.
And I can't resist a hand print ornament...
We even made my favorite peppermint play dough! This is always a hit! : )
For our Christmas activity, each of my kids got to decorate their own Christmas tree! I have an amazing room mom who pulled everything off! The trees came from Hobby Lobby and I found the tiny light strands at Dollar Tree for a dollar of course. I pinned each child's name to Santa hat for the topper. I bought the Santa hats 90% off last year after Christmas at Target! Hoarding pays off ; ) We asked parents to send the ornaments.
We divided the ornaments out before the activity so there would be no drama.
The kids LOVED it!!!
I wasn't at school the day of the Christmas party, which just about killed me! We had a party in Dallas for my husband's new company. It was so fancy and lots of fun!
But, I sure was sad to miss the school party! : (
My kids played Christmas BINGO and ate way too many sweets I'm sure!
I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas Eve!
Merry Christmas!
