Holiday Activities....and EXCITING News!

We are VERY busy in Kindergarten this week.  I was just saying to a colleague, if I try not to "teach" for the next week we might fit it all in!

I am really feeling the loss of an extra week between Thanksgiving and New Year's this year!  To boot, we had a snow day on Tuesday.  

Now, I'm certainly NOT complaining about that by any means.  But it did throw me off.

It's also taking twice as long to complete our activities because the little's are bouncing off the walls excited Christmas is coming!

Here are a few of the activities we worked on this week:

We've been learning about the different holiday's.  I always decorate my table to include those holidays (although someone moved the dreidels!.) The kiddies help me count backwards and change the countdown cubes on the snowman.

We started by making our holiday stockings.

Next, we started working on one of my favorite activities:

 It's so cute when they're all losing their teeth!

I'm sooooo limited with our new Language Arts curriculum as to what our children are "allowed" to write independently.....a rant I'll save for another time!  We "researched" real reindeer to see what we already knew about them.  We charted new facts we learned and decided on two facts we wanted to write about reindeer.  I pre-made the writing sheets and had the students fill in the missing words.

And finally, we started to create our stained glass trees today.  I absolutely LOVE doing these trees - but warning, there is A LOT of prep involved when doing this with little ones.  This year, I decided to give them sheets of tissue paper to rip themselves instead of sitting and doing it for an hour.  The loved doing it and were surprisingly good at it!

You begin by cutting a border template in the shape of a Christmas Tree.  Place the template onto contact paper (sticky side up.)  I had the kids fill in a few red pieces first so it looked like ornaments on the tree.  Then they fill the rest in with green tissue paper. Place another sheet of contact paper on top to "seal" the tree.  Cut off the excess contact paper.  Optional: Punch a hole in the top, attach a loop of string and hang in the window for a stained glass effect.

Of course I forgot to take a picture of the "finished product" but I'll do that tomorrow and post a pic.  We hang them in the window until it's time to take them home.

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Now for the EXCITING news!!!!!!

I am so grateful for all of my wonderful followers and those who have followed me on this amazing journey over the last year.  I wanted to say thank you by offering {insert drum roll here}...........

Beginning tomorrow, and every day for the next 12 days, you will be able to download a great freebie!!!!!  I have some exciting surprises for you too!

Be sure to check back tomorrow night (Work holiday party first :) for your first FREEBIE!  See you then :)