More Christmas Around the World Goodies for YOU!

First thing's first... Happy 34th Anniversary to my mom and dad! :) My mom sometimes stalks my blog, so here's a little cyber love if you're reading this!

I survived LOVED shopping yesterday on Black Friday! And, aside from a woman who wished death via a terrible car accident and a horrible Christmas upon me because she thought I *cut* her in the line (Yes, I'm serious. Hello! There were a billion people trying to squeeze in to one line... it's just called pandemonium not cutting!), I got some great deals and had a ton of fun with my friends. We left at 10pm on Thursday and I returned home at 10:30am on Friday!

So, I'm keeping that holiday spirit going and have updated two more files for my Christmas Around the World unit.

The first, which I'm totally psyched about, is a re-formatted scrapbook-esque booklet. The cover is just too stinkin' cute! Click the pic to head to my site and get your free copy!
The second file I added today is just an additional version of my Passport Labels after I received a report that the PDF file wasn't lining up correctly on Avery 8160 labels. I just put it up in WORD too, so hopefully you'll have better luck with the printing. Click the picture below to head to my site to download the WORD version if you'd like it!
That's it for Saturday. My hubby is having a guy's night, so I sense a night of DVDs and the couch for me and my dogs!

If you download the scrapbook, I'd love to know what you think. I'm pretty geeked about it! And, I'd also love to hear your Black Friday horror success stories too! Can you beat a wish of death and a horrible holiday? ;)

Happy Thanksgiving and a Holiday FREEBIE for You!

Happy Thanksgiving, bloggy friends!

After this weekend, we'll be getting into the holiday swing at school and one of my favorite feel-good things to do with my students is have them share how other students in the class have helped make our classroom a brighter place... hence... Thanks for LIGHTING Up Our Class!

I would like to share with you the banner you see above and a light pattern so your students can create a bulletin board so celebrate the ways their classmates make your room a happy place to be.

All you have to do is click the image above to download the banner and click the image below to download the light pattern.

So, what I do is copy the light pattern on several colors of paper and then write each students' name and my own at the top of the lights. Then each student (and me too!) gets a light with a classmate's name and they write and/or draw to complete the sentence saying one way their friend has LIT up our classroom! They cut them out and we share what we've written. Then I hang them in the hallway and use green yarn to make the string of lights to all of them.

We love brightening each others' day with the compliments and the kiddos love to hear what their friends say to each other too!

BUT... if you download the files, I would love for you to share the love by leaving a comment about how a bloggy teacher has helped LIGHT up your classroom and then leave that person a comment on their blog to let them know you gave them a shout out! I hope we can LIGHT up the comments of this post to celebrate all the talented, awesome, and generous teachers out there!

And I'll go first in the comments below...

I hope you'll join me in celebrating the kindness of our colleagues!

Christmas Around the World unit outline update and some pics to get you in the Christmas mood!

Wow- thank you so much for your great response yesterday to my request to share your favorite book titles with me! I definitely have some shopping and reading to do! I hope you will enjoy your free Chocolate Touch or My Father's Dragon unit too! If you missed the freebie, the two units are available at The Teaching Oasis. I'm finished getting them all e-mailed out but did get a few bounced back to me... so if you replied yesterday and haven't gotten yours by the end of today... you may be one of the bounce-backers! E-mail me at christina4062@hotmail.com and I'll make it right for you!

I've been working hard to update and add to my Christmas Around the World materials and so today I'm sharing the updated unit outline with you. I tried to go through a be a little more specific on some things, include authors on the books, and then address some questions too.

If you'd like a copy, click the image to head over to my website and get one! :)


Happy Tuesday... two days until Turkey Day and then... the countdown until Christmas begins!

I'm a little crazy about Christmas. My husband always says our house looks like "Santa puked", which I take as the highest of compliments! I've been working for the last week or so to get everything decorated. Yes, I know it's early... but I love it!

Here's a peek into my decorations...

So, here's our main tree! We have soooo many ornaments and most are unique. I love putting them up and revisiting memories with my husband as we decorate. We went to New York City this summer and acquired a TON of new ornaments there... it was so fun to re-live the trip as we put them on! As a kid, I had a cat tree in my room and my sister had a dog tree. I love pulling my cat ornaments out every year and putting them on the tree. Not to mention the Donald Duck one that my sister and I always vied to be the one to put it on the tree... when I moved out, he became mine and I relish hanging him up every year! ;)

And here he is now! I just love putting him in front of a light! Sorry, Michelle... maybe you didn't know, but he's mine!!!!

Our "fireplace" with mom-made stockings! For us and our dog-sons too! My stocking will have seen 31 Christmases this year! My little nativity is up there too along with my small collection of Christopher Radko ornaments.

Here's my little kitchen tree... love it!

Ahhh... my Santa mice. My husband is not a fan, but my parents have a set of these they got around the year they got married (1977) so they were in my house every year as a kid. They SCREAM "CHRISTMAS" at me. When I moved out, I struck crazy mouse gold when I found my own set on ebay! My sister was able to find a set too... so now the tradition can live on forever!

My snowflake trees!

This is the first "spin-off" tree from having an abundance of ornaments. My mother-in-law has gotten my husband a tin soldier ornament almost every year of his life, so last year we started putting them on this awesome tree that I bought at my school store for a mere $5!

This is my "clippy bird" tree. I LOVE it! I think this is my favorite tree.

I collect Rudolph things so this is a tiny portion of my Christmas village. It's made by Hawthorne Village and is just awesome! I love it!

If you made it through my post and my pics, good for you! :) Enjoy the updated Christmas Around the World unit and, if I don't blog again before then, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Books, Books, BOOKS!

You guys are awesome! You have kept me forwarding and replying to e-mails all day!

I will send out the last free units when I wake up tomorrow. Since I have the day off from school, it's a toss up of whether I will be able to sleep in or if I'll wake up at my normal time... which, sadly, happens sometimes!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the previous blog post about read alouds!

Daily Read Alouds and an Outstanding FREEBIE for One Day Only!

A few years ago when I was working on my Master's degree, we talked about daily read alouds and I was surprised that not everyone just automatically reads aloud every day to their students.

I can get on quite a soapbox about this topic, so I'll try and remain calm (!) but I just wanted to share some of my favorite read alouds, get some from you, and relish in the joy of reading aloud to kids.

I read several times a day. During my Daily Five mini-lessons, I usually read at least one book every day for instructional purposes. I have some favorite book lists for comprehension strategies that you can find here.

I also read during snack. My students eat and I read from a chapter book. Sometimes we do things like draw our visualizations, keep track of good words or characters, or track character development. Other times, we just read to enjoy a good book. Some of my favorite chapter book read alouds are Charlotte's Web, Mr. Popper's Penguins, My Father's Dragon, The Chocolate Touch, Pippi Longstocking, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Stone Fox, and anything and everything Roald Dahl.

A few summers ago, two reading gurus from New Zealand visited my area and I attended a week long conference with them. Aside from being incredibly fun and entertaining, I learned a ton! They suggested doing 3 read alouds daily... 1 for instruction and 2 just for the heck of it. I have tried to embrace that philosophy since then. My kids LOVE when I read aloud to them and it is one of my favorite times of the day too.

I heard someone say once, "If my students can read to themselves, I don't need to read aloud to them". FALSE! My 8th grade language arts teacher (Mrs. Pinney... who I *love* and who inspired me to be a teacher!) read to us every day and I still remember it. I LOVED it!

Reading aloud helps your students develop important listening comprehension skills, hear fluent reading, and practice important skills like visualizing and predicting. Not to mention all of the instruction you can do on a whim- vocabulary, helping understand jokes, and showing emotion during a book. I love Stone Fox and read it every year even though it's a toughie and I have to help my students think through the story. But, I always cry and have a few students who do too. A few years ago, one of my little boys said in an awe-filled whisper with tears running down his cheeks at the end of the Stone Fox, "Wow. Who knew a book could make you feel something like that?". That was a teacher heaven moment that I will never forget!

So, in the spirit of all things read aloud, and Thanksgiving, and the giddiness I am still feeling after a HUGE Donor's Choose project of mine for tons and tons and TONS of stuff for my math workstations got funded last night, I am giving away my unit for The Chocolate Touch OR My Father's Dragon. Both of these are available for pay on The Teaching Oasis however, if you follow my ridiculous list of demands below, I will shower you with the free unit of your choice!

1.) Leave a comment suggesting a favorite read aloud and why you love it... either a picture book for instruction or enjoyment, or a chapter book. I'm in need of new chapter books because I looped with half of my class!

2.) In the comment, leave your e-mail address and which unit you'd like.

I'm going to be a jerk though and insist that demand #1 is followed! So, please recommend something for me and why. I looooove buying books and adding them to my library. I'm counting on you to help!

That's it! This is for one day only... so I'll start shipping out units on Tuesday (or maybe even tonight if I'm feeling ambitious!)! Marygrove College has a great blog on the importance of reading aloud for older students... if you can, go check it out!

New File for Christmas Around the World Freebie!

So, I'm not trying to brag (ok... I am a little!) but I am now off of school until Monday, November 28! This gives me lots of time to refresh, refocus, and work on some resources for my kiddos and maybe some things you can use for yours too!

I just added a "Traditions Tree" to my free Christmas Around the World items. We'll create a paper ornament for each place we visit, drawing or writing about how that particular country celebrates. Then we'll each create a Christmas tree with these traditions ornaments!

I included a page of blank ornaments too... if you have any ideas on how you might use those, leave me a comment below! I'd love to see what you're thinking!

When you click on the image, it will take you to my website where you can see this file and many others to help make this unit exciting for your students!

Twas' the Week Before a Week Off...

...and all through the classroom, the teacher was freaking out about doing crafty projects that have some meat to them, wrapping up studies, and then... getting a whole week off! :)

So, it doesn't rhyme, but that's how I'm feeling right now in a nutshell!

This week we've done two little projects... one was inspired by Mrs. Carroll over at The First Grade Parade. When I saw her little scarecrows, I knew I had to do something similar. Since we studied possessive nouns this week, we read lots of scarecrow books and my kids created scarecrows and then wrote sentences containing possessives in them to display with their scarecrows. Take a peek!


Today, we watercolor painted a turkey because I realized I had done very little "fun" stuff for Thanksgiving this year... it just sort of snuck up on me! So, we did this quick activity. As my students were watercolor painting, I called each one up to my computer, typed their quote about what they were thankful for, and compiled everyone's quotes into one document. Then I added a text box and pasted in what each individual student said and they attached that to their painting. I love it! :)


And this last one just made my heart happy! :)


Happy week... tomorrow's our last day for a week!

Christmas Around the World Picture Books

What a week... and it's only TUESDAY!

Yesterday my school's town lost power for almost 2 hours... the first 30-minutes everything in my end of the building was flickering off and on every minute or so, so we just turned the lights off and used one of the only things in my room that was working- my overhead projector, for a light source! We got out a flashlight to use in the bathroom and had just resigned ourselves to an afternoon with limited power when, finally, it just went OUT totally and I taught in the dark for another hour or so! It was actually kind of cute to see my students huddled around the windows to do their writing... :)

Today we made our November "Snazzy Snack" which was pumpkin pie in a bag. WOW. It was so tasty!

I can't even think ahead to tomorrow, but Thursday is a movie in the morning for the kids who tripled or quadded their AR goals for the 1st marking period and Friday we're having a read-in for the day... I'm off all next week! :)

So, today I just wanted to share with you the books that I use for my Christmas Around the World unit. I do get a lot of e-mails about this, and most of them you can easily find by searching for the title, but a few others are a little more un-obvious... so here they are!

Day 1- any The Night Before Christmas. I use this cool pop-up book: 

Day 2- The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie daPaola

Day 5- Wombat Divine by Mem Fox

Day 6- Christmas Tree! by Wendell and Florence Minor- this book doesn't necessarily pertain to Germany, but I love it because it shows all these different "trees" and how each one is special to the people/animals/etc... in the illustrations

I also have the book Christmas Around the World by Mary D. Lankford that I read bits of and use as a great resource. I'd highly recommend it! This author has many other "____ Around the World" books... I'd love to check out her others!


I also have a book I got for Christmas when I was about 6 years old called My Special Christmas. By now, it has been taped together by my mom a million times and the pages are brown and wrinkly, but it stars me, my sister (Michelle), and our dog (Max) as we travel around the world, meeting "Santa" figures from many different countries. At each stop, we get a large letter. At the end of the story, we end up at the North Pole where Santa arranges the letters to spell the word "PEACE", which is his wish for "every boy and girl, and their parents too, in the whole world". I always read that to my kiddos during this too... that book is just CHRISTMAS to me! :)

Ok- I hope that helps! I plan to be back later this week with something useful for your classroom! :)

New Christmas Around the World Freebie!

Today I'm off in Christmastown (aka- Frankenmuth) so I thought this would be a great day to unveil the newest addition to my Christmas Around the World unit, which is available on my website.

Almost everything for the unit (including the unit plan) are free! I wanted to incorporate more opportunities for writing, so the newest addition is a venn diagram and two different kinds of writing paper for students to write about their own holiday traditions compared to that of another country. The image below will take you to my site where you can see the venn diagram and other other items I've developed for the unit! If you have anything else you'd like to see for the unit, let me know. I really want to make it more comprehensive, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I hope you enjoy the resources! Happy Holiday-around-the-world-ing! :)

Fun Brain and Body Breaks

My kiddos are really enjoying these "Action Stories". They are stories you read aloud while students get a chance to take a quick brain and body break to act them out. I was so lucky to come across this laying in the copy room of my school... to the staff member who found it first... THANK YOU!

We've done "Leafy Season" a few times and they always want to do it again as soon as we finish.

If you get a chance, check out the website for the "Action Stories"... I know they will be well-needed breaks for us as the holidays come closer and closer!

PS- Happy 11/11/11... This post got posted at 11:11am just to go along with the theme! :)

Tomorrow I'm headed to Frankenmuth with my girlfriends. I can't wait! Happy weekend, bloggy friends!