Break = Work on School Things I've Been Wanting to do Forever!

I love winter break because it gives me so much time to be with my family, clean up my house, get the stomach flu (an unexpected visitor), and regain my inspiration and motivation to do some of those things that have been on my list at school for so long!  I retyped and made some of my literature circle activities more appropriate for my 2nd graders.  One of my good teaching buddies is a 4th grade teacher, and she had let me use a form of the lit. circles for quite some time, but when I moved to 2nd grade they needed to be a bit more primary, and bit more updated!  After finishing up my report cards today, I decided to venture into this project, and it's finally done!  I've added it to my TpT store.  I'm trying to figure out how to make my unit look as cool as everyone else's on their blogs, but for now, you'll just have to check it out  at Teachers Pay Teachers.

If I don't post again until after Saturday, I hope you all have a great New Year!!!  See you in 2012!

A Gift that will Keep on Giving!

My sister had pointed me in the direction of an ornament someone had created using their friend's wedding invitation.  They cut the invite into strips, curled up the paper, and put the strips inside a glass ornament.  I thought it was a great idea, but I didn't have any wedding invitations to do this with, so I created my own plan.  I am the youngest of 5 siblings and have 8 nieces and nephews, so there is always a lot going on in our lives.  I had my siblings send me a sentence about each of the members in their family, and then I typed them out, made some strips, and put them in the ornament!  This is the Robinson 2011 ornament.  Each year I'll have a family gift to give, and it will become a fun timeline of events that we can look at each time we take out our ornaments to decorate the tree!  I thought this would be a fun way to remember your class each year too, if you had them write a sentence about themselves, and put it in an ornament.  I love reminiscing about students I've had in the past.  Here is an example of one of the ornaments I made!

  

Christmas Gifts

Tomorrow is our last day before break so I have, of course, been a little elf the night before getting their gifts together! It's nothing creative, and my only goal was to make it something they would enjoy, and use things that wouldn't cost me a penny!

I started with the $1 books on Scholastic and used points to order them with my last book order. When I moved rooms this past summer I came across some glow bracelets that our Sheriff's Department brought in, and I had stored away, so they will each get one this year. I then sharpened a pencil (my kids LOVE freshly

sharpened pencils this year) and threw that in. I created a Free Homework Pass to use for any subject, after getting permission from the other teachers who have my kids for math! This is sure to be a hit with all of them!
To put it all together, I grabbed brown lunch bags which I already had, punched holes in the top and wrapped a ribbon with an ornament to hang from the outside for some added decor when they walk in in the morning. The ornaments were purchased last year after Christmas and were 25 cents for 6 ornaments!

They aren't fancy, but I think the kids will be really excited to get a lot of different items, and it was really cheap to create!! Both goals accomplished.

It all has to start somewhere and Elf on a Shelf Door

Well...I only have 2 days left of school until Christmas Break, I finished my master's work and graduated on Sunday, and my Christmas decorations are up and ready for the holidays so why not add something to my list of things to do with a blog! It had to start somewhere, so here it is!!! I'm ubber-excited about it!

I've been wanting to start this for quite some time, but just kept putting it off. There are a few other blogs that I go to daily (I think that makes me a stalker) and I get inspiration from them all the time! Today is one of those days! Hope at Second Grade Shenanigans is doing a giveaway for ALL, yes ALL, of her items at her TpT store. In order to get it, I had to blog about her giveaway...so I had to start this just to be entered!! Can you tell how much I love her stuff? Check out her page for the giveaway!

I feel like I need to post something creative for my first blog, although you can tell by my page and blog title that I'm not the most creative person around! This year, our new principal wanted to have a door decorating contest for the holidays/winter. I thought and thought, and thought some more until the Elf of the Shelf concept hit me! This picture (can you tell this Blog was started on a whim...sorry about the quality of the photo!) shows the elves my kiddos created. On the other side of the doorway, they had to write clues about their elf so that visitors and friends would have to guess which elf was theirs based on the clues! It was great to work on adjectives and inferencing, while having some fun too! My kids were really creative with Colts, Hoosier, monster, fairy, and Santa elves!