Five for Fraturday ~ Elf Capades and Kid Funnies!

Well in true form I am posting my Five for Friday on Saturday Fraturday.  The wonderful Kacey at Doodle Bugs is taking a break from her linky for the rest of 2014, but I love reflecting on what we did for the week and this always seems like the best way.  It is like “Our greatest hits” of the week…lol.

First I just have to say we only have 7 ½ days until Christmas break…wow, where has the time gone.  It is flying by.  We have really come a long way this year, but we still have so much to learn and it seems like such little time to do it in. 

This week was filled with learning and fun and this is how it went down.

This was our focus wall for the week.  We are continuing on with a word family, number and 2 sight words for the week.

We have finished up all the 2D shapes and have moved on to 3D shapes.  This week was all about cubes. Now that we have made it all the way through the alphabet it was time to start with digraphs and blends.  I like to start with the digraphs first I just think they are easier for the kiddos to “get”.  Of course we had to make a circle map for each of them.

They did a fantastic job coming up with words for Th and Sh.  We also watched 2 short clips on starfall to introduce the sound these digraphs make. 

 Right before we left for Thanksgiving we wrote letters to Santa asking him to send us an Elf of our own.  Well, Monday morning about 10am the office called and we had a special delivery.  I sent a student to the office to bring it back.  The first thing my student told the class was that the box was freezing.  Of course everyone had to touch the box…it may or may not have been in the freezer for the last 18 hours or so… Everyone was sooo excited.  

They were all commenting that it had to be our elf from Santa.  Well we opened the package and it was!  They were thrilled and there were screams and squeals  galore.  I had to remind them to not be so loud we might disturb the 2^nd graders next door.  The plastic was even foggy from being so cold. 

We put the box up on top of the file cabinet and I passed out our Elf journals and we got to voting on a name for our Elf. We ended up with the name Chippy.  Then we drew a picture of our new elf.

Each morning we spend a few minutes writing about Chippy.  They have never been so excited about writing. These fantastic elf letters and writing activities can be found from Kristal at Kreative in Kinder here.

The first day Chippy came out of his box we found him hiding behind a picture frame.  The next morning he was in the pen holder on the side of my file cabinet.

Then the unthinkable happened…Someone TOUCHED Chippy.  I know this because a little boy came to me to say…”See, he didn’t lose his magic, A--- and I touched him and he is fine!”  I just said…”Oh, really”…I was in disbelief!  This particular student is usually a total rule follower so I was really surprised.  But, his cohort didn’t surprise me one bit.  Well that night Chippy returned to the North Pole as a result.  The next morning the kiddos found this note.

They were devastated! They immediately kept asking who touched Chippy…of course I didn’t tattle and the two who did it were not confessing either.  In fact the one who had told on himself wouldn’t even look me in the eye all during carpet time…lol.  

So that afternoon instead of our regular writer’s workshop we wrote letters to Santa saying we were sorry and that it would never happen again.

Thankfully the next day Chippy returned.  This time way high on top of my cabinets.  He may have to stay out of reach for a few days until I feel that he will be “safe”.  However, it is a little difficult for Chippy to have “fun” if he has to sit high up out reach of little hands.  We will see how it goes.  Do you have an Elf in your room this year?  I would love to hear all about it!

For the next 2 weeks we are learning all about Gingerbread.  We will be reading many different versions of the Gingerbread man and we are making an anchor chart so that we can see all the things that are the same and different with the stories.  We recorded the Setting, Characters, Problem and Solution from each story.  I am a bad blogger and didn’t get a picture of our chart in progress. Insert sad face… I will be sure to snap a pic once it is all complete and post it next week…I promise…lol.

We started off with these 4 versions of the story.

The kiddos liked the Gingerbread Baby the best so far.  If you want to check out any of these books for yourself you can easily find them on Amazon from the widget of my fav books for December down below. 

Do you have a favorite Gingerbread story…I am always looking for more.  To finish off our Gingerbread study we will be making our own Gingerbread houses too.  It is gonna be so much fun!

I know December is usually all about Christmas.  I know some of you aren’t allowed to do “Christmas” in your rooms. I love decorating for Christmas, but how do you do that without being overt. I have a solution for you.  Sight word chains!  I have done these for several years.  The kiddos love making them.  They are totally academic.  They make cute decorations, without being too “Christmasy” (I know that isn’t an actual word), and they are super easy. 

You just cut red and green paper into 1 ½” strips.  Then each student writes sight words on them. You staple the papers into a chain. Done.

I require that they can only put words down that they can write all on their own.  No peeking at the sight word wall.  I did also limit it to 12 words per student since I knew I wanted to hang them in our windows and any longer would not fit.  We also only had fifteen minutes for this activity. 

They had a blast and I think they look fantastic hanging in our windows.

I saved the best for last.  Maybe you noticed something a bit different when you arrived here today??  I got a fabulous blog makeover from Designs by Kassie!  I just love it!  I will say, being on the waiting list was totally worth the wait.  She was great to work with and I highly recommend her if you’re thinking about a custom blog design. Thanks Kassie! You rock!

I am also linking up with Kathleen at KidPeople Classroom for Funny Kid Friday. 

This time I don’t have a story but rather some funny one liners I heard this week…

At guided reading I was instructing a student to …come on get your name on your paper so we can get started.  The student next to him says…” Ya, Come on Fool!” including attitude with it too! Not a typical 5 year old.

We were working on a project whole class. I had one student that is super quick who kept  wandering the room in between the steps of our assignment.  I had several times asked this student to find their seat and be patient while the rest of the class catches up. Finally one of my little angels, (lol…one that is usually a handful himself), says to this student…”How many times does she have to tell you”  It was all I could do to keep from busting up laughing.

Finally, I learned once again how careful we have to be about what we say around our students.  As we were waiting on several students to return from specials I had a few students who were being a little “wild” on the carpet dancing around…what can I say it is December…anywho, One of my sweeties looks at them and in a very firm tone says…”Now is that an appropriate thing to do?”  I know I say that quite often I guess it is rubbing off…lol.

Hope you had a great week.  Did you have any kid funnies?  Why not link up with Kathleen and be sure to check out all the other posts.  Have a great week friends!