A Whole Lotta Christmas!

 I truly can’t believe it is only Tuesday.  I’ve literally been at work for a 1 1/2 days this week and it feels like we have accomplished a week’s worth of activities!
We were able to wear jeans and a holiday shirt on Monday to start our week.  That was a nice treat!  Here is my sweet girl with her Rudolph shirt from Zulily.
 I had to take the morning off to update my fingerprints for our current adoption.  That meant I got to eat lunch with Joelle for the first time ever!!!  Jared and I surprised her with a little Chick-fil-a and made her the happiest little girl around!!!
The staff at our school wore ugly Christmas sweaters for our staff party… I ended up running out of time and just grabbed one at Target.  I tried to accompany it with a few tacky accessories, but it ended up not being so bad. #illdobetternextyear #runoutoftimeandenergyeveryyear
Our grade level planned a bunch of fun activities and rotations for our kiddos to keep everyone super busy this week!  We want them to be so preoccupied that they forget to have bad behavior, ha!
On Monday and Tuesday we did Christmas book rotations.  Each of the six teachers read a Christmas story and did a quick activity.  We only had each class for 30 minutes so it had to be brief!  For my rotation I read “Sad Santa” and we made these Santa stars from Christina Bainbridge.  The kids always love making these!
 Once my class was back and settled we made Christmas cards for a local nursing home.  I decided to do fingerprint light-strands and they turned out pretty cute!  Idea from Meet the Dubiens!
I don’t do a lot of painting in my classroom because we just have zero time, but this was the perfect amount!  Plus nobody made a mess!!!  #score
They wrote sweet little notes on the inside.  This one says, “I hope you live for a long time” hahahaha
Over the weekend I finally decided on which ornaments to make for our parent gifts.  It literally took me weeks to filter through Pinterest, blogs, and Instagram to finally settle on a couple of options.  Once I *finally* went shopping I couldn’t find ANY of the materials that I needed!  So, in the middle of Hobby Lobby and Target I scoured Pinterest again… and landed upon Cupcake Liner Christmas Trees and easy-peesy Rudolphs (I just bought brown glittery ornaments… literally only have to glue on the eyes and nose, then add antlers)!  Joelle was my guinea pig on Saturday… we made ornaments in our pjs 🙂
Today my class made the Christmas trees and they turned out so cute!  I found all of the liners at Hobby Lobby for a buck per pack.  I think I bought 7 packs and some sticker jewels… super cheap and fun!
You can find the tutorial for this project HERE!
 I’m going to be absent tomorrow because my sweet little girl is just as sick as can be :(.  This is her first experience with missing school, having a fever, and just feeling cruddy!!  I feel so bad for her, but plan to give her lots of cuddles tomorrow (when she’s not so contagious, ha!).  While I’m out my students will start our Grinch activities.  They will read the story and make this Grinch (inspired by The First Grade Parade).  On Friday we will end our Grinch fun with green candy canes, the movie, and a GRINCH party!
Not even knowing that Joelle was sick, I decided to plan for January while I was at work yesterday.  PTL that I got ahead of the game because I would be running around like a crazy lady on Thursday and Friday had I not!  I prepped all of our Penguin materials so that we can have all kinds of fun with these waddling wonders when we return from Christmas break!  Penguins and Telling Time is what we have coming up!
Now all I have left to do is make Rudolph ornaments, prep for the Christmas party, wrap parent gifts, pick up party goods, and get my little girl feeling well!  Happy Tuesday, everyone ;)!
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Hi, I'm Amy

Hey, y’all! My name is Amy Lemons and I am passionate about providing students with both engaging and effective standards-based Math and ELA lessons.

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6 Responses

  1. Oh my, SO many cute ideas I pinned for future use – thank you! Love that you stopped by Target for your holiday top. Target is SO convenient and one opened WALKING distance from my house 🙂
    Enjoy your week – it looks like so much fun! Jen

  2. I love that idea of having each teacher read a different Christmas book, and then doing a craft that correlates to the story. Great idea and I am sure that the kids enjoyed it. Julie (Green Apple Lessons)