There Was a Cold Lady Craftivity

I hope everyone is enjoying their much deserved break, I know I

am. I've had a few days where the whole family stayed in their pajamas all day long. I'm a homebody, so relaxing at home with my family is a perfect way to spend a day.
I've been thinking, just a little, about some fun literature activities to do when I get back. Tacky the Penguin and The Little Polar Bear are a few of my winter favorites, but we'll also be bringing in The Little Cold Lady that Swallowed Some Snow.
This craftivity will be so much fun for the kids. I have a bunch of crafters this year which is a perfect match for me. After you read the story, complete the activities either as a whole class or in small groups. I also have a freebie that goes with this story that I wrote about at this blog post.

The next day, we'll build our "Cold Lady" containers. I would have the kids glue the inside flaps... "A little dot will do." I just tape the bottom on the outside and a little piece for the inside. I'm sure gluing would do as well.

We love to play card games in class. Sometimes I make games on sturdy cards that I keep as a center, but ofter I want them to take the cards home so they can practice with their family. The game shown in the picture is called "Bang". It's really simple and can be adapted for any skill you are working on. We'll be working on the magic E, so those are the cards I prepared for this craft. Instead of writing "Bang" on the cards, I wrote "Chomp".

Directions
1. In a group, students take turns drawing a card from the deck and try to read them.
2. If they can read the word they get to keep the card. If they can’t, have the group help them read it correctly. He/she gets to keep the card.
3. When a Bang!/Chomp card is pulled from the deck the student who drew it has to return all their cards and the Bang! card into a separate pile. In this case they will place them into the "Cold Lady" container.
4. The game is played until all the cards are drawn, and the student with the most cards, wins. 

Grab this freebie in my TpT store by clicking, HERE

I'm thinking of making an author study with Robert Munsch. It was either him or Kevin Henkes. The books I thought of were...

Stephanie’s Ponytail
We Share Everything
Thomas’ Snowsuit
The Sandcastle Contest
Andrew’s Loose Tooth
The Fire Station
Wait and See
Do you have another favorite that I should include on my list?
Take care everybody.

There was a COLD Lady

  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. I'm bracing myself for a few very busy weeks at school before Christmas break.

One of the best parts about the holidays are all of the wonderful children's books for December. There is honestly not enough time to get through them all. One of the stories we'll be working with next week is Mooseltoe. This moose dad is just an amazing father, running around to make Christmas special for his family. Next month we'll be talking about Random Acts of Kindness, so I thought we could brainstorm ways to do something special for someone. I made this chart as an example of what we'll be doing next week. The "light bulbs" are sticky notes, so that you can just take them off when you're done and use the cute poster next year. You can write character traits of the father as well. If you want the title and label just click here.

Grab the title and caption, here.

We'll finish the week off with this cute little craft. I love including the kids hands in their art work. Splash a little glitter and sequins and you have a project the kids will love.

 I'm always wanting to reinforce the Common Core Standards any way I can. One of the tricky ones is Shades of Meaning. This activity doesn't put the words in order of intensity, but it does reinforce that words have synonyms and some work better than others in certain situations. I'll be squeezing this in between one of my Daily 5 rotations. Grab this here to give it a try.

Grab this freebie, here.

If you like any of these activities, check out my unit about Mooseltoe and Olive the Other Reindeer. 

If you want to check this out in my TpT store...

Here's another fun option.

Before we left on break I wanted to have some artwork I could hang up for the winter season. Why do bulletin boards take so long to put up? I know I'm going to be busy, so I picked something I could keep up as long as winter is here. Runde's Room had a really cute example of this, but I believe she used oil pastels. They were so vibrant! Honestly, I just love how these turned out, so different and cute.

 There was a Cold Lady that Swallowed Snow goes perfectly with catching snowflakes. The kids love all the stories in this series. 

They always seem to sing along with 
me as the story progresses. You can use this sequencing activity as the story is read. They can have the squares cut out prior and the glue as the story is read. I used it as a parent run station. The story is quick and easy for a parent to ready. Then the kids can spend about 10 minutes completing the task. Grab this freebie and have fun with the story.

Grab this freebie, here.

 Have a wonderful week!

The Name Jar and Short Vowel Necklace

I found such a wonderful book. It's actually more than 10 years old, so what took me so long to discover it. The Name Jar is about a little girl that recently moved from Korea and is nervous that the American children will not like her. She wonders if she should change her name to an American name that is easier to pronounce. It's a lovely story with an ending the kids in my class can learn from. This is actually something that happens in my class quite often and so many of my students were able to relate to our story's character, Unhei. We continued our study of story elements. Using a story map has been super helpful and I love how easy it is when using sticky notes.

Grab this story map for The Name Jar.

I also made a story map for the children to have them try completing their own.
Another activity we used with this story is discussing ways we are special. Just like Unhei's name made her unique, we all have something unique about us. Unhei's grandmother tells her during the story, "You are different...That's a good thing!" I couldn't agree more. I love finding opportunities to celebrate what makes us special. 
 
We completed a chart and the children told me something that makes them unique. 

Grab this writing page for The Name Jar.

Our art activity tied into the story. We made our own wooden name stamp like the one Unhei received from her dear grandmother. A local business puts out tons of scrap pine wood each day, so I was able to grab wooden blocks for the class to make their own "name stamp". We first sanded the paper, so that they became sliver free. Next, the kids used starch to brush on colorful tissue paper. Some children were methodical when placing their tissue paper and others just slapped them on with no rhyme or reason. Both ways came out beautifully. I punched out the children's first initial with our school's Ellison cutter and pasted it on with Modge Podge. One coat seals the coat and makes the block shiny.

We are still working on short vowel CVC words. This was a fun, tactile activity we did that started as a small group activity that was lead by a parent. We strung the straws a "beads" together as a whole class. The children wore the necklaces all day. They took them home and read them at least three times. If they got their boxes checked off, they received a ticket the following day. 

 Providing your students with a variety of ways to practice their phonics and fluency skills increases the likelihood of increased success, not to mention makes learning CVC words FUN!

Check out this fun way of learning phonics...HERE.

Enjoy your week.