Snow Day!

So. My morning went a little like this... Woke up, roads were bad-ish, but had no call from the school. Went to school. Walked in the door, principal said "hey, don't you know we have a 2-hour delay?" Then my phone rang. I was there, so I got some work done. Then they cancelled school. BLAH.

BUT. The best part? High school and middle school had already gotten to school by the time ours was cancelled, so they put in a whole day even though we didn't go at all, which means we don't have to make the day up!! Woot! So, I went home, played in the snow with my pup, and finished up me 3 hours of video training on how to recognize and report child abuse. We even had to take a quiz. I passed. Hooray?

Anywho, here's some of what we've been up to in first grade the past few days... I finished my Christmas door, which if you remember from last year, we all tend to go a little over the top. Well, this year we're not going QUITE as over the top, since there's literally like 2 days of school in December. Hard to be motivated to put up door decorations that will be ripped down the next week. I know, I'm a Scrooge. We had to pick songs, so I went with "We Are Santa's Elves" from Rudolph, and turned my door into Santa's workshop.

It looked REALLY lame and boring, so I added a nice list with all my kiddos' names, and a Christmas countdown. Super low key, but it's still fun. I'll try to take some pictures of other doors in the building this week!

If you follow me on instagram (@mrfirstgrade) you've seen what our elf, Mistletoe has been up to! Here's what he's done the past few days...

Hope you're enjoying December with your kiddos!

Mistletoe is Here!

Well, this PA teacher finally went back to school today... Apparently people went hunting yesterday? I wouldn't know. It was good to be back in the swing of things! I had mentioned to my kids that "we had an elf last year" and "I wasn't sure if he would come back or not" because "classroom elves follow different rules than house elves..." Oh my gosh. They're eating out of my hands. So, today, they all came in asking if the elf had shown up, since theirs had all shown up at home. I mentioned that last year, the elf came AFTER I read the book to the class, so they were immediately begging me to read the book. Love love love the book. I'm such a sap.

Anywho, here's what Mistletoe did on his first day back in first grade! Got the idea on instagram! If you elf, use the hashtag #elfintheclassroom for some fantastic ideas!

Our elf tends to be very mischievous. Stay tuned. I also wanted to share this AWESOME pack I found on TPT a while back and had waiting in my cart for the big sale. If you have an elf in your room, you NEED A Cupcake For The Teacher's Elf Magic pack. There's loads of fun stuff, but my favorite part is the elf tracking journal. Today, we filled in the first part together, but starting tomorrow, they'll be filling it in on their own as a "must do" work on writing activity during Daily 5. Check it out...

I love that they'll have a little keepsake to take home before Christmas to remind them where we found our elf all month long... Great pack!! Highly recommend.  Stay tuned to see how I used her elf project for my door decorating this year!!

The Elf on the Shelf

First off, sometime today my little blog hit its 1,000th page view! (It's the little things in life that excite me!) Thanks for reading, and please keep coming back!

Since it was an ugly, rainy, Monday in December, here in central PA, I had tons of no motivation. I plastered that smile on my face, but really struggled to think of anything creative for my little firsts to do today. Am I the only one that gets this way on ugly days?! Since I don't have much to share, I decided to post a few pictures of what our Elf on the Shelf, Mistletoe, has been up to lately...

I saved the marshmallows that I used to make our "homework bin hot tub," and had him make a snow angel on the floor. The kids just about died, and were SO careful not to step on him!

I think one of my favorites so far has been having him hide in our "warm-fuzzy" jar! Not only did he hide there, but he added a bunch, which really had my kids cracking up! Funniest concern over this one was how he was going to get out to fly back to the North Pole. I explained that since he had gotten himself into the jar, he would most likely be able to find a way out. (LOVE when they start to question things and I've gotta think on my toes!)

Oh. My. Goodness.  Go find somebody who has a Barbie scooter... NOW. This was epic. Every time the kids left the room, he scooted his little Barbie scooter to a new place in the room. Towards the end of the day, I guess he got a little tired of scooting, and he started to lean forward. I thought he was going to fall off, and my life flashed before my eyes. His head ended up resting on the handlebars, so I told the kids he must have fallen asleep at the wheel. When they went to special, he "crashed" the scooter and locked himself in one of the centers bins like he was in jail. One of the funniest moments yet.

When you find somebody with a Barbie scooter, ask them to borrow a miniature cell-phone, too. Mistletoe was on the phone all day, and my students' biggest concern was how I was going to drink my coffee... I love my little firsts, and they know how much I love my coffee. They know what sound my Keurig makes when it's done brewing, so they're always sure to tell me "Your coffee's done, Mr. V!!"

I wish I had an Elf on the Shelf all year long...

Honey Bees

Hello, all!  We use Reading Street at my school and I was thinking of a way to spruce up my reading board. Since we're currently reading Honey Bees, I decided to have my little firsts make some bees for the board! They had a blast making them, and I think they turned out pretty fun! I had them cut out the stripes BEFORE they cut out the bee, so that the stripes would fit perfectly. We're all about avoiding sloppy messes! I also gave the students a half sheet of paper that I had drawn 2 wings, 2 eyes and a stinger onto.

LOOK at how fun they look on our reading board!!

Here's a few pictures of what our Elf on the Shelf has been up to... He turned our homework bin into a marshmallow hot tub the hung out on top of our Christmas tree. Stay tuned - tomorrow he starts using props!

Christmas Trees And More

Greetings!  First off, don't forget that my entire TpT store is 20% off until Wednesday!  Head over and snag my Christmas centers!  My kids started them today and LOVE them!!

Thought I would share this fun little project I had my kids do at their seats during reading groups instead of centers the other day. They turned out much cooler than anticipated!  Decided to make little sight word trees to brighten up our hallway! I drew the outline of a tree on large paper and ran off enough copies for the class. Then, since I don't have any fancy scrap-booking circle makers, I folded construction paper a bunch of times and used the letter "i" on the die-cut to make a gazillion little ornaments for our trees! This was the most time consuming part of the project, but it honestly wasn't that bad. I let the students use the sight word wall to choose which words they needed the most practice with (mostly so they would get into the habit of using the sight word wall). I had them write 1 letter of each word onto an ornament then "string" them onto the trees.  Here's a picture of my example and a few of the ones the kids made. Love the way they turned out!

Also thought I'd share what our little elf on the shelf has been up to lately! Last Friday, since we had a spelling test, I decided to have him hang out on the whiteboard wishing the kids good luck. This worked out ESPECIALLY well because one of the kids had whispered to him where he should hide the day before. I, of course, took the opportunity to say "Ooo, that's fun!  Where did you tell him to hide?!" Imagine the look on his face when the elf really listened! Today our elf took one of the paper lanterns in my room and turned it into a hot-air balloon.  This was REALLY fun because I moved it around the room every time we left, so it was like he was floating all over the place!  Too funny.

Have a good night!

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Heyo!  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I came back from Thanksgiving break, Christmas was in full swing! We had off school this past Monday for the first day of hunting season, which is AWESOME for people like me who've never shot a gun and would pass out if they had to gut a deer. I took the opportunity to decorate my room so it was all ready to rock and roll when the kids came back on Tuesday. I also spent some time making a set of Christmas themed math and literacy centers, which are now available on my TpT site!

Click to check it out in my TpT store

I was also SUPER excited to get started with my elf on the shelf. Last year, my students decided to name him Mistletoe, which I love love love. On Tuesday, I mentioned to my kiddos that I had an elf visit our room last year, but I was worried that he might not find my room, since I switched schools. I told them that he showed up right after Thanksgiving last year, so we should be on the lookout for him. Totally took the opportunity to talk about things that Mistletoe would be happy to see if he were watching... My favorite response: "We shouldn't pick our noses while he's here." Priceless. (I wrote don't be yucky).

He showed up in our room Wednesday morning, hiding in one of the cups on my amazing word wall. The kids were VERY excited to see him, and some of them even said they saw him blink or turn his head... I love how much they believe! I caught one of my students whispering to him at the end of the day once everyone else had left... Made my heart smile!

The MOST exciting part of the day was when we came back from lunch. They started saying that they saw him move. I, being the slightly overly dramatic person that I am, played along. I was COMPLETELY dumbfounded when I went into the room and saw that he really had moved. One of the teachers in my building, and I'm STILL not sure who, snuck in and moved him while we were at lunch. So here's little old me, JUST as excited as my first graders. He really is magical!  Today I decided to have him start a little mischief. He destroyed our calendar, and the kids thought it was the funniest thing.

If you use an elf in your classroom, what are some fun places that you hide it? I'm ALWAYS looking for silly things for Mistletoe to do!