Peek at My (our) Week-Christmas (trees), Freebees and More Travel

This post is just what you need to get ready for the Christmas Season! It has a week worth of lesson plans, 2 freebees, an interactive writing lesson, and the cutest gifts you will ever give your kids! Get ready....the fun, and craziness, of December is here!

Let the count down and craziness begin! Yep, 15 days of pure, no holding back, gotta love it….craziness!  I love working with teachers, but, this is the time of the year that I miss the classroom the most! No other profession allows you to spend an entire month watching the excitement build. To be quite honest, until Matthew was born last year, Christmas morning just hadn’t been the same since I left the classroom. The build up,the excitement that only children can bring…pure sweetness.
So, what is Megan doing in her room this week? It’s hard to believe that we are finishing up Unit 4 for Reader’s Workshop. We are now meeting with all the children for guided reading during the work time! Our kids are loving the nonfiction books that we made. My friend Bert put it best…my struggling readers feel so empowered! They have the same book as their “smartie” friends—the same pictures, the same features, only the level of text is different!
We are also finishing up our mini unit on list making and pattern writing. I love the pattern writing. Each child feel like a writer! It is a high success unit! Here is a sample of what pattern writing looks like.

We are mostly using ideas about Christmas Trees this week. See below for links to the freebees! We are going to talk about using our senses to figure out what is in a Christmas gift on Monday and Tuesday during Science. What does it feel like? and What does it sound like?

We started a new Math Attack Unit this week for the December/January theme.
You can download a copy of the lesson plans here to save for future reference!

Here is a picture from last year where we made the gingerbread houses. I bought 3 kits. Each child was able to decorate one part of the gingerbread house. Then, a parent volunteer helped to “glue” them together!

Scroll to the bottom of this post to snag this free file. There are more activities for this song in our Trees Unit.

Here is an interactive writing activity we did a few years back. You can read more about how to do it (here).
You might have started thinking about gifts for your kids. These are by far the best gifts we ever gave.
Here’s how:

• We used a shower board from Home Depot and cut it into lap board sizes.
• Then, we hot glued ribbon along the edges.
• We used a paint pen and wrote their names.
• Finally, we attached a dry erase marker with a velcro dot!

I remade the Christmas Math Game Pack this week. If you already own it, be sure and go to your “my purchases” section on tpt to get the updates.

I also remade the Christmas Literacy Game Pack.