Elf on the Shelf

Two years ago I came across an idea on Proteacher about Elf on the Shelf.  It sounded like a good idea.  At first I thought the elf was a little creepy, but was willing to give it try.  My students that year loved it.  Every day they looked forward to finding the elf in the classroom every day.

The Elf on the Shelf  is a cleverly rhymed children's book that explains that Santa knows who is naughty and/or nice because he sends a scout elf to every home or in this case a classroom. During the holiday season, the elf watches children by day and reports to Santa each night. When students come into the classroom each morning, the elf has returned from the North Pole and can be found hiding in a different location.



So I plan to use the Elf on the Shelf again this year.  This year I wanted to incorporate more activities to go along with book.  So that is my plan to create additional activities to go along with the book.

Here's my first idea- a writing activity.

Hope to post more ideas later.

I'm Thankful For

Well I had great intentions of posting this last week, but never got around to it.  I had several IEP meetings and helped my parents pack-up my Grandma to move her into a memory care place.  Needless to say I haven't had the time I would like to post on my blog. 

Even though I've been busy I have a lot to be thankful for. With all the focus in our school on student growth there hasn't been enough time to do some "fun" learning activities. Last week I had my students write about what they were thankful for.  I was looking for things like "I'm thankful for my video games." I wanted something more thoughtful.  They were to write a sentence on each of the turkey's feather's. 

Here's a picture of the turkey (without the writing.)

Of course you could a number of differnt ways.  I just thought this turkey pattern was so cute.  I'm sure it is too late to use this year, but file the turkey pattern away for next year.

Turkey Pattern Download.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Learning Matter with Food

Who doesn't enjoy an activity where food is involved? I know that usually has my attention.  This week I am trying to finally wrap up our matter unit, and thought this activity would be a great lesson on teaching mixture and soulution.  Plus we have lunch so early that everyone once in awhile it is good to have a snack in the afternoon. 

Enjoy!

Math Puzzles

Over the summer I took some math classes on the new common core standards.  One of the biggest things I took away from those classes was getting students to "think" more about the mathematics.

Students love to solve puzzles so I created some math puzzles for students to solve during math centers.  I have a  free sample which I will upload to this post.  A larger set of these will be available for sale soon at the Teaching Oasis.  Since I have not had a giveaway in awhile so I thought I would combine this with a giveaway. 

For this contest I'm looking for the first 3 posters who would be willing to check over the puzzles with answer key to make sure I have the correct answers to each puzzle.

Puzzle #1 answers:  circle- 6 triangle 5 square 7

Puzzle #2 answers: circle 2 triangle 9 square 4

So if you are interested in winning the whole set (26 puzzles) please leave a comment below and include your email address.  I will be picking the first 3 posters who leave a response/email.