Santa's Stuck Again!!! What?? (Plus a little mouse, that green guy, and new year!!)

Hello Everyone!
I just wanted to catch you up on what we've been up to. If you are a first grade teacher(or anyone working with kids!), you know how exciting this time of year is! We have to work hard to keep kids engaged and learning. For the past few years, I have found that "Santa's Stuck" by Rhonda Greene fits the bill.  I have shared this unit before, but I keep reworking it.  This year we did the traditional Santa with his legs sticking out of the chimney,

(We've done this one a gazillion times- but every year, the kids love solving the problem of Santa getting stuck!),

but then we've been doing some work on adjectives, and the use of fun words from "Must Be Santa" led to some very simple but effective focus.

The kids know their adjectives!!!

If you have my Santa's Stuck unit already, yay!  If not you can get it...when you CLICK HERE!!!

There are a ton of activities included.

This week I am using "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies" as our mentor text.  Such fun!!  I'll post pics of our activities and problem solving soon, but if you need the unit

SIMPLY CLICK HERE!

Again...a ton of engaging learning opportunities for your kids!

Next week???  That beloved Green Guy!!!

Again, I'll share pics as we go!

If you don't have the unit I shared last year, you're in luck,CLICK HERE!!!!

Finally, if you already have my Happy New Year unit, please download on the "CLICK" below for the 2017 version!!  Can you even believe it is almost the new year???  What???  This school year can't be half way though already, can it? We have so much to do!!! So many places to go! So many problems to solve!

CLICK HERE for the updated New Year Unit.

OK!!  That's it for now!!! I've got to get working on my kids' little gifts!  I loooove this time of year, almost as much as our little do!  Have a wonderful week.  Thanks for stopping by for a peek through our window on wonder!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Using our Senses, Door Ornaments, Candy Canes, Book Elf Gift Tags, and Happy 2016!

Hello Everyone!!
We have been so busy learning about what good authors do to make writing interesting and visual. This past week we focused on "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies" and used the whole idea of the popcorn to practice using our senses.  Of course we had to pop some popcorn.  What a great motivator for gaining an understanding of sensory techniques.  Sorry I didn't get pics of the actual popping, but I did get some of what we did next!  I cut some simple popcorn shapes.  The kids wrote sentences about what they experienced.

We also worked on some ornaments like the mouse in the story.  That mouse sure was demanding!! He wanted so many things!  We focused on things we need, things we want and things we can give. 

Click HERE for the PDF if you want it!

Last week we also were working on heat energy.  We got together with our book buddies and worked on some Candy Cane science.  The mouse would have loved this, but it also went so beautifully with the book -Katie the Candy Cane Fairy!! The fairies' candy canes lost their stripes-- and so did our candy canes!!!

While we were waiting for our candy cane science to "do it's thing, we made paper candy canes! 

Easy to make. Color a border around a square piece of paper. Flip the paper over and roll around a pencil from one corner to the opposite corner! Magically, a candy cane stripe will appear! The kids loved making these!!

The candy cane science activity is included in my Grinch unit.

You can get that HERE!!

We love giving books to our first graders for their holiday gifts. Normally we attach a little plastic sparkly icicle to use as a reading helper.  Well, of course we couldn't find any this year.  I went looking for something else we could use for our gift, and finally found some cute little clips with little elves on them.  You could easily make these by gluing on some felt and drawing a face, but I decided to save some time and purchase them. I made a little tag and voila!! A sweet little gift for some sweet firsties!!

You can get a free pdf of the tag here if you want! CLICK!!

Lastly, I have had a ton of  requests for an updated version of my Happy New Year unit.  DONE!

I added a few things to cover what we'll be working on when we get back from our Winter Break. 

Pics??? Of course!!!

We will use this for "Rhythm and Rhyme"

These are just a few of the 80+ pages you'll get in this year's download. 

You can get that free unit HERE!!! Click away!!

PHEW!!!  I knew this was going to be a loaded post, but we made it!! Thanks for sticking with it to the end!!  Now off to get ready for Grinch Week!!!  So excited!!

I'll try to take pics along the way and share when I get a chance!! As always, thank you for stopping by our little "Window On Wonder."  I love reading your comments, so don't be a grinch, let me know how things are going!!

Till next time, have a wonderful week!!

Joyfully!

Nancy