Our Reading Christmas Tree

To say that our principal loves reading and wants all of our children to love reading is a MAJOR understatement!!!  She is doing wonderful things to encourage everyone in the school to read and to love reading.  For our Christmas PTO meeting, she decorated this Christmas tree with all of our favorite book characters.  I thought it was just precious!!!

Isn't she great!!!  I have a lot of trees in my house at Christmas and one day I want to have a tree like this - doubt it will happen, but, hey!  Here's hoping!!!

12 Days of Christmas GIVEAWAYS!!!

What a great Christmas present!!! Check it out and join in on the fun!!! I can't wait!  Check out Oh Boy 4th Grade for all the details!

SNOW (yes, not a typo) in November

What a surprise!!! Anytime we get snow in West Tennessee we are excited because it just does not happen a lot! However, when the weather forecast calls for 3-5 inches of snow on NOVEMBER 28 - that causes a lot of excitement.   We were not sure when (or if) it would come, but about 1:45 it came!!!! These pictures don't show a whole lot but by the time I left school - the ground was COVERED!!!

The kids LOVED being out in the snow for a little bit.  We took black construction paper to see if we could catch snowflakes to see the different patterns.

Even Ms. Jill and I LOVED being out in the snow!!!!  Who are the coolest (ha ha) teachers?

We shall see if we have school tomorrow . . . .

Veteran's Day Activities

Our principal is AWESOME to say the least.  She found this idea on Pinterest and all the classes participated after talking about Veteran's Day this year.  What a great way to honor the men and women who have served our country.

For our class activities, we watched the changing of the guards at Arlington Cemetery and President Obama leaving the wreath.  I had had the class bring in names and addresses of people in their family who had served our country.  In conjunction with letter writing that week, each child wrote at least one letter to a veteran thanking them for their service to our country.  We mailed the letters that next week.  I love teaching our children to love their country!!!

Flat Stanley

At the beginning of the year, the third grade classes read Flat Stanley. After we read the book, each child got their own Flat Stanley to color and send off to someone.  They also included a letter telling what we were doing. We have had a wonderful turn out from our Flat Stanley adventures.  In the third grade hall, we have a world map and a US map to show where all Stanley has been.  The kids look forward to seeing where Stanley has been and what he learned while he was there.  

Some college students took Stanley with them while they were in Europe for the semester.  Stanley got to visit all kinds of neat places while he was there.  He was even on ESPN at the Belgium/USA soccer match.  One child sent her Flat Stanley to Afghanistan with her uncle who is a soldier there.  Stanley even got to go to Antarctica!! 

We can't wait to see all the other places Stanley is going to go this year.

Celebrate Good Work

I love celebrating when a child does something wonderful!  We have this poster in our room with all the different kinds of cheers we do for them.  Sometimes we let them choose - sometimes we just decide on one for them.  Here are a few:

Hi 5 - Hold one had up and the other hand waves to it

Roller Coaster - with your hands, go up the big hill (saying "ch, ch, ch") 

and then go over hills (saying "whoo, hoo")

Elvis - play your guitar as you say "Thank you, thank you, thank you very much!"

Grate - hold a grater to your arm and say "great, great, great"

Micro-wave - wave your pinkie fingers

Lookin' Good - draw a mirror and fix your hair as you say 

"Lookin' good, lookin' good!"

Colonial Times Food

A few weeks ago, we read the book William's House in our reading series.  I love this story for many reasons, but I really enjoy it because of the history it teaches.  There were many vocabulary words in the story that we just are not familiar with because of the time period.  So, I brought a bit of it home  . . .

We made butter that morning as the children came in to the room.  I put whipping cream in some clean jars with marbles.  The children passed the jars around shaking them turning the cream into butter.  They LOVED this.  After the butter was made, we placed it in the refrigerator until it was time to eat it with our cornbread muffins (thank you, Jiffy!).  I had placed tomatoes, corn and lima beans in the crockpot to cook during the day for our succotash.  That day PTO gave us all a popcorn party, so we had a colonial meal anyone would be proud of!!!!  We washed it all down with a noggin' of apple cider just like William.

I was really surprised how much the children enjoyed their snacks.  More than one came back for seconds (and thirds) on the succotash!!!

YAY for food in the classroom to make things come alive!!!!