Green Grinch

We did some fun Grinch activities this year!

These are our Grinch faces!

 

I have a slight obsession with hole punches!  This is one way that I keep myself super organized when it comes to crafts!  I just whip out the boxes and tell the kids what colors or sizes to get!  It is so easy!

This has nothing to do with school but I was pretty shocked that it happened! I was on my way to a dinner party and popped TWO nails off at once! And I still had to go to the party!  I was a little embarrassed, hehe.

 


Here we are working on Reindeer Hats for our Christmas Caroling!

Every year we ask parents to bring cut up fabric and each student makes a beautiful Christmas wreath to give to their parents.  It's one of my favorite things we do!

 

I have several templates made out of file folders and the kids trace them (or I do if I am having an impatient day, lol!)

 

This is what the reindeer hats are for!  They are sooooo cute!

 

We read the book "Snowmen and Christmas" which is very similar to "Snowmen at Night".  We then did the same prompt as the rest of Pinterest "If I were a snowman at night, I would...."  The kids loved doing tear art!

 

We had a class elf this year!  I felt the pressure from other classes, lol!  In a desperate attempt to maintain class control I sent an email to Santa asking him to send us an elf!  He came the next day, and delivered M&M's since they lost them the day before!  They named him Sneakers!  It was fun, until I forgot to move him one time!  Boy was that hard to get the kids to understand! 

 

It's the most Wonderful time of the Year!

Before Thanksgiving break we invited all the parents to a Thanksgiving Presentation.  We made turkey facts and wrote about the first thanksgiving. Then we shared a couple poems and a fun song! "Albequerque Turkey"

Next we made our own 120 chart because a number line is just too crazy when it's that long, right?

Some kiddos wanted to be silly when I took their picture!

The kids told me where to cut...such smarties!

Then I gave them Post-It's and told them to draw /th/ things. 

We made a TH wreath. 

On Thuraday we had an administrator visit us during our math lesson. We worked on understanding equality using story problems and a balance scale.

 

They worked so hard! 

They hard to solve the problem then write a sentence telling what they did. 

On Friday we started our December Strategy Builders for problem solving.  This one is my favorite! I love the Christmas clipart in it!

You can get the December Strategy Mini Journals HERE

 

 

 

We ended the day with skip counting ornaments by twos!

The Art of Clipart

When I started this adventure of entrepreneur-ship I decided I didn't want to use the same clipart everyone else was using....(aka-I'm super cheap!) So, I decided to try to make my own clipart.  It has been a fun and gratifying process and I wanted to share how I do it!

I usually start out with a list....That helps me stay on task!

Here is a couple of samples that I had done and crossed off my list. ( I was working on an ABC clipart packet to sell.)

I begin my light sketch......(sometimes I google some pictures to get an idea of how to form the body or what position I like the best.)

Then I trace them carefully with my fancy black felt tip markers! (I LOVE THEM!!!!)

I go back through and erase any pencil marks I might see because they will show up when I scan them in.

And my favorite part....Marking it off the list! (Or in this case, tracing the pink with black!)




























I then scan them through a copy machine use some pretty cool (aka-expensive) programs to convert the image to the special files that are best for clipart.  I use the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to convert and color.  These are what work best for me!  I hope you found this interesting, lol!

Sparky Came to Visit

Sparky the Fire Dog came to visit us and we had so much fun! 

We watched the firetrucks spray water in the field!

We learned how to crawl to safety

Sparky gave us a Hi-Five!

We got to look in the different fire trucks which was so cool!