Cute New Deer/Reindeer Reading T-Shirts Available

 As we head into winter and look forward to the holiday season, the need to layer clothes comes into play for many of us!  Students, teachers and librarians can wear cute t-shirts with a cardigan or zip-up hoodie, and there are so many fun designs offered on Etsy, including in MY shop!

You can tell I'm a crocheter, too, but take a closer look at the t-shirt designs I just added this weekend:

Perfect for teachers, parents, grandparents, and librarians, don't you think?  You can find this shirt in pink and other colors here.

Toddlers and kids will love wearing their own sweet deer/reindeer for the holidays and family get-togethers, too!  Find the kids' shirt here...

... and the toddlers' shirts here:

These shirts promoting reading were fun to design!  I hope you enjoy them.

New Year: Time for...

New books:

New crayons:

New decor:

New stamps:

... not to mention new pencils, new play dough, and possibly new students... welcome January!

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The Ki ABC stamp sets were purchased at Walmart (craft aisle).  I pull the & stamp out of the sets, but keep the punctuation marks in case students decide to stamp out sentences.  I haven't found matching uppercase and lowercase sets yet, but I like to have both versions of letters available for see it, stamp it, spell it sight word activities.

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How do you welcome students back to class after winter break?

*~WISHING~* for a Snow Day

We're anticipating some snow in Oz this evening, and my Stars have promised that they'll be wearing their pajamas on backwards, putting ice cubes in the toilet, and sleeping with a spoon under their pillow this evening, just to *make sure* we get a snow day tomorrow.  For all non-Alaskans, I've been told it's the magic formula for encouraging snow.

Being ~my~ students, the Stars felt that the creation of a Snow Day Headband would also help our efforts:

The long blue rectangles are the base of the headband, 3 inches by 12 inches long.  The pink and light blue rectangles are 3 inches by 4 and 1/2.  

 The Stars enjoyed painting with Q-Tips yesterday, so we decided to use them as our painting tool again today.

 I modeled how to make a snowflake: paint the number one, turn it into a lowercase "t," then add a lowercase "x" across the top of it.  Add a dot of paint to the end of each line.

Leftover snowflake stickers helped to dress the headbands up a bit:

For now they're drying, but once we're sure the paint won't drip, we'll wear our headbands for the rest of the day in the hopes that they bring us Snow Day LUCK!

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5:00 pm update: We will indeed have a snow day tomorrow!

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The Snowy Day from Ezra Jack Keats Foundation on Vimeo.

Seems Like a Good Day to Stay Home

Apologies, no photos of the classroom's January decor today...and this is why:



...after the rain and hail storms last night, we woke up to icy trees, icy fences, icy vehicles, and very icy roads. Seems like a good day to stay home!



I guess we won't be grilling tonight either:



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The sounds of vehicles sliding back and forth as they attempt to drive through the neighborhood are echoing into the house- talk about *acoustics!*

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I'll spend much of today straightening up my crafting nook, trying to brighten up the area a bit before the urge to make valentines hits me. I love how Christmas Red morphs right into Valentine Red!

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If you're staying or stuck at home:

~ why not bake Smitten Kitchen's Gramercy Tavern's Gingerbread Cake...

~ sign up for Cartolina Cards' newest card giveaway before Monday (December 29)...

~ make a cute Wall-E sandwich that your kiddos will enjoy (many thanks to Anna the Red for sharing this cute idea and many others at her site- who knew playing with food could be so much fun?)...

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Gingerbread Faces, Carnival of Education, Music

Aw...



(paper plates colored brown, construction paper pink nose, red cheeks, white "frosting," google eyes and black pipecleaner mouth)

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Here's a recipe for gingerbread "play dough:"

1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tsp. cream of tartar

Spices: allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg

1 cup water, 1 tsp. vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients with spices to get color you like.
Mix water and vegetable oil together,add to dry ingredients, stir.
Cook the mixture over medium heat until smooth, stirring frequently.
The dough will pull away from sides of pan and clump together.
Knead the dough until soft, smooth, and pliable.
Cool. Store in air tight container (freezer bags work well, make sure to squeeze the excess air out).

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~ Gingerbread Cookie Recipe from Food Network

~ We'll enjoy several of Jan Brett's Christmas books this month, but here's a link to decorate a gingerbread house she designed...

~ Here's a sandpaper gingerbread man ornament....

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This week's Carnival of Education is up at Learn Me Good, where Mister Teacher put a teaching/school spin on A Christmas Carol...

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...in case you didn't know, I love a good remake.

Hello Winter, it's Glitter Time!

The Stars enjoyed making their patterned trees for their winter forest, but in December, we'll learn about some family holidays too, such as Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, Los Posadas, etc.

When I asked my Stars who their favorite winter character was, they surprised me with their overwhelming response:

RUDOLPH the Red Nosed Reindeer! I admit, I was expecting Santa or some elves, but thankfully, I had enough red glitter on hand for the Stars to use on their chosen art project:



Cut a large tan triangle from 9"X12" construction paper, make a stencil for antlers (or just run off a pair on construction paper and have the students cut them out), and use three construction paper ovals, two white for the eyes, one red for the nose. I think glitter sticks best to wet/liquid glue, so my Stars used a sponge-y brush to paint a thin layer onto the red noses before shaking red glitter on top.

I've asked my students *why* Rudolph has a red nose- their responses will be posted around the reindeer display next week:



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Adding some red and green into the mix, our Fifth Grade Buddies helped us make elf characters! We chose skin color crayons to match our own complexions, cut out the face, mittens and shoes, and glued them together with a large rectangle body and rectangle arms. Their names were written in glue on the hats and multi-colored glitter was sprinkled on top (still drying when I took this photo):



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I've added multi-colored wooden star garland around the tops of the staple boards, and our winter forest display in the book/calendar/morning message center is ready for us to add winter words/vocabulary:



The pattern above our desks this month is *Christmas tree, candy cane, snowy tree, snowy tree, Christmas tree, candy cane, snowy tree, snowy tree*:



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In case you're worried I've jumped the gun in having my students help me transform our classroom before Thanksgiving, never fear:

~ Open House was Thursday night, so all of our November artwork, writing, and special projects were shared with families. Friday, all of it was sent home so that students could prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday.

~ This week, we'll only have class on Monday and Tuesday, having the last three days off for Thanksgiving Break. When the students return to school, it will be December 1.

~ Students will only have three weeks of school before Winter Vacation (and the last two school days will be spent enjoying our classroom party, taking artwork down to use at home, and prepping the room for January (I see mittens and snowflakes in our future!).

~ Students benefit from having ownership of and say in what happens in our classroom. With very chilly weather visiting us for the first time this week, it became obvious winter is here to stay. Not surprisingly, the Stars were eager to say goodbye to all things autumn-ey.