Catching Up and a Freebie!

Conferences....Check.  Thanksgiving...Check.  Flu shots for the kiddos...Check.  Get our act together on blogging...check.  Get a few of our new TPT projects finished and uploaded...check!  Seems like lately the more we check off of our to do lists the more we add to it. I'm sure many of you can relate! We have been busy playing catch up this week after some well deserved family time over Thanksgiving break.

Along with checking things off of our lists our very favorite Elves on the Shelves have come to visit our classrooms.  The students are enthralled with "Elfie" (creative name choice...we know!) and "Jasper".  Elfie is just visiting for the first time in first grade.  They have been practicing their good behavior so that Elfie can give a good report to Santa each night. Jasper on the other hand has returned to visit the second graders and has brought with him a top secret mission from Santa.  SHHHH!  Santa has spilled his hot cocoa on his laptop and lost all of his data on Christmas customs around the world!  He has asked the second graders, with the help of their elf Jasper, to collect data on Christmas customs so that he can be ready for Christmas (See our Christmas Around the World with Elf on the Shelf Unit on TPT for more details).  So far Jasper has visited Germany, Holland, and Mexico this week and has brought back information for the second graders to to take notes on for Santa as well as some very nifty art projects!  All in all they are having a blast while learning about Christmas around the world.

We have also begun playing winter morning meeting games from our brand new collection of Winter Themed Classroom Meeting Games on TPT.  Check it out!  They are so fun...who wouldn't want to throw "snowballs" at their teacher? or at their students? :)

We have also been working on a FREEBIE for all of you for a while and have finally found time to finish it and get it up on TPT.  Both of us utilize literacy centers and Daily 5 for our language block and are constantly looking for new word work activities for the kiddos to keep busy with while we meet with our guided reading groups.  Spell-O-Rama was born out of this need.  Please go to our TPT store to download it for FREE.  The students absolutely love it and it can be differentiated to meet many different phonics and reading levels with little prep for the teacher...which is always a plus in our book!  Oh, and the suoer cute font that we used in this game is called No Bullies Allowed by Alyssha Swanson over at Teaching and Tapas.  Best of all it is FREE too!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes


Deanna and Jenelle