Tag Archives: Teachers Pay Teachers

Teaching Before Christmas

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It’s true that teaching the few weeks prior Christmas is a little more challenging than teaching at any other time in the year.  All the kids have CHRISTMAS on their brains! I decided this year not to fight that fact, but to join it with a trip around the world to learn how Christmas is celebrated in other countries!

Christmas Around the World Book

On Monday morning as my 2nd graders came into the classroom, I greeted them with a boarding pass.

Boarding Pass for Christmas Around the World!

“Where are we going?” “Are we flying on a plane?” “Will we be back for supper?” “We’re riding on a real reindeer!” Those were the snickers I heard around the room as I signed their take home folders. I thought, “Oh no! They are going to be disappointed when they find out this is all pretend.” But they totally weren’t. I think they were just excited to see me pretend along with them.

Each morning I would play a window-seat plane takeoff clip on you tube, followed by a plane landing clip. Once we “arrived” in our new country, I would greet them in the native language as I passed out their stamp for them to glue in their passports.

Christmas around the World Passport

Then we would read the passage about Christmas celebrations in our current location.

Christmas Around the World Reading Book

To tie this in with our reading curriculum we paused at the end of each paragraph and said, “Time-out! What’s the topic?” while making the time-out T with our hands. Then they shared the topic (in one or two words), or the topic sentence from the paragraph.

We’ve had a blast learning about these countries and their celebrations. In fact, one of my students said that her mom offered to let her play hooky from school to go Christmas shopping, and she declined because she didn’t want to miss our “trip!”

So far we have “traveled” to Canada, Mexico, Peru, Germany, and Italy. Next week we will go to Greece, China, Japan, and Australia.

Christmas around the World Hall Display Map

I highly suggest this activity the last few days before Christmas. It’s a great way to learn about geography, diversity, cultures, and Christmas!

If you are interested in doing Christmas around the world in your classroom, you may want to check out my TPT product for this unit. It might just be something you could use.

christmas around the world preview

No matter if you check it out or not, I hope you’ve been inspired by something in this post! May your last few days before Christmas break be pleasant ones!

julia's_signature

 

It’s a Busy Brunette Summer!

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I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as these brunettes are. We’ve enjoyed it so much, we haven’t even taken the time to post!

What have we been up to? Well I, Julia, have been scrapbooking, preparing for a class that I’m teaching this summer on digital scrapbooking with photoshop elements, sewing curtains for my bookshelves in my classroom, going to family reunions and various other trips, and making small craft projects.

I also have been working ahead for the upcoming school year. I’ve collected 30 or so poems to correlate with my spelling units. Each Tuesday we’ll read a poem and highlight the words that contain our spelling pattern. Then we’ll add those words to our spelling notebook. When I was collecting these poems there were several patterns that I just could not find poems for! For these poems I wrote my own. I’m sharing them with you to download in case you are on a poetry hunt too. They are available here at my teacherspayteachers store.

There are 11 poems, each containing it’s own word family. Each poem includes 7-15 of the pattern words.

Word Families:

  1. Short Vowels with –ck and –ea- (ex. duck, feathers)
  2. Beginning Consonant Blends: sp, st, sw, sn, sm, sc, sk, rt, tw
  3. Final Consonant Blends: -st, -nd, -mp, -sp, -nt, -lt, -ld, -lf, -pt, -sk
  4. Consonant digraphs: ph, gh
  5. Sounds of y: y as /e/, y as /i/
  6. Long O: oa, oe
  7. Long O: ough, ow
  8. Long U: ui, ue
  9. Plurals: -y, -f (ex. story -> stories, scarf -> scarves)
  10. Soft c and g
  11. 11. Endings: -sion, cian

I mentioned I’ve been scrapbooking. Here are some digital layouts I’ve made so far.


Credits: kit: Peppermint Creative Miss Mint Ten Pin; alpha: getaway alpha by chelle’s creations


Credits: Slam Dunk Kit by Chelle’s Creations


Credits: template: Simply Tiffany Studios 52 Templates #33; kit: Spontaneity by Twelve by Twelve Designs; football alpha, element, and paper: Tailgate mini kit by Wishing Well Creations; football circle element: Attitude Kit by Golden Girls; Balloon: One More Year Mini Kit by A+ Designs;


Credits: Tagboard Animals, Papers, Alpha, Ric Rac, and Flower: March of the Animals Blog Train at StuffToScrap.com by Adriana’s Cafe, B2N2 Scraps, Scrappin’ Serenity, and Sweet Maple; Palm Tree: Polka Dot Bikini by Jessica Edwards; String: Picnic In The Park Blog Train by Trixie Scraps Designs; Flowers: Deca Designs, Bela Gypsy (from Red, White, and Blue and Are We There Yet Kits) and Cora’s Creations (Countdown 2010 Kit); Green Paper: Polar Opposites Blog Train by My Life and Scraps; Brown Giraffe Paper: Giraffity Mini Kit by Bella Gypsy


Florida: Template: Template #246 by Yin Designs, Kit: Summertime by Jessica Edwards, Alpha: Spring is my Thing by Connie Prince


Camping: Kit: The Great Outdoors by Weeds and Wildflowers; Template: Template #72 by Mandagirl Templates; Paper: landscape background by friendlyscrap


Credits: kit: America: Heartland by Sweet Shoppe Designs and Julie Billingsley


Credits: Slam Dunk Kit by Chelle’s Creations

I also made a good friend of mine a sticker to go on a bucket. She’s using it to hold drinks at an ice cream social she’s hosting. I thought it turned out really cute!


I used my cricut, sure cuts a lot, the method described here, and the font, peggy.

Alright, that’s enough of an update on the past month. Now we’ll tell you what your can expect next month.

That’s right we are going to share a classroom theme every Thursday in July to get you pumped about the upcoming school year. Check back to see which themes will be featured! On the last day, the 26th, we will host a linky party for you to post your own classroom theme. It can be an old post, or a new one, as long as it’s about your classroom theme! Get excited! It’s going to be fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

I Heart Earth.

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We’re all about celebrating Earth Day in my classroom this week. It’s only 4 days away! We have been evaluating how “green” our school, classroom, and homes are. I made 3 report cards for each of those locations. If you are interested, they are at my TPT store! (It’s a 20 page unit with math and literacy activities too.)

How else are we celebrating Earth Day? We are repurposing our trash! I discovered an easy way to remove the printing on food containers, so we have been collecting yogurt, butter, and cottage cheese tubs in order to turn into attractive storage containers (well, as attractive as it gets when a 2nd grader is doing the decorating!).

Do you want to know how to remove the printing on food containers? It’s easy! You need pure acetone (located in the beauty section near the finger nail polish removers), a rag, and a container.

In a dish pan, pour enough acetone on the rag to saturate it. (Make sure you are in a well ventilated area and are wearing gloves.)

Then wrap the rag around the container and let it sit for 3-5 minutes. It may take longer depending on what brand container you are working on. I found that Dannon, Great Value, and Kroger brand come off the easiest.

Check the container by rubbing the paint. If it wipes off, you are good to go! Just keep wiping! It’ll come right off. If it doesn’t come of easily, keep soaking. You may need to re-saturate your rag.

That’s it! You’ve got yourself a blank slate container ready for sprucing up. Check back later this week to see what we did with our containers.

Happy Earth Day!