Christmas Door Contest

Our school hosted a Christmas door decorating contest... Let me first start by saying that we are just a little extremely competitive. We hear contest and break out all the bells and whistles. This contest was no exception. Please enjoy this explosion of holiday ideas! I cannot take credit for any of them, but wanted the world to catch a glimpse of the creativity of our teachers!

Here's the gingerbread house right next to my room. The kids had their faces on gingerbread men and the principal was the big gingerbread man on the door - she even made a roof out of an old refrigerator box to hang from the ceiling. I know. Over. The. Top!

Library door, complete with singing reindeer and an original Christmas song!  "Hope your holidays are merry... Fa la la la la la la la la... With some books from the library... Fa la la la la la la la la..."

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"

Charlie Brown Christmas, complete with vintage Christmas lights!

Our reading center was turned into a Reindeer stable and the reading specialist had the kids make each of the teachers as a reindeer... Priceless!

Polar Express - the students were all in their bathrobes and the teacher even put their pictures on tickets. They also do a big Polar Express day, so this will make it even cooler!

The Grinch's cave - showing him how he can care... LOVE!

A collection of snow globes.

The Island of Misfit Teachers - each of the teachers had their face plastered onto a character from Rudolph... I was Hermie.  My life is complete.

Penguin Party - the teacher made herself an eskimo and all the kids were penguins.

Over-sized Santa... Pretty cool!

Mele Kalikimaka!

Who-ville! Our reading teacher is ob-SEUSSED with Dr. Seuss. She's that bubbly thing sitting at her desk being super productive.

We have, hands down, the most amazing custodial staff. Our daytime custodian decided to decorate his "office" to join in the fun. 

The nurse's office!!

The list goes on and on...

 

 

Do you have any fun holiday door ideas? Please share! We'll all be trying to one-up ourselves next year!

Tomorrow's For You, Sandy Hook...

If you haven't already seen it, please go read Susan Antonelli's post at Wonder Teacher... She has given me the encouragement I needed to go to school tomorrow and teach my heart out.

"Go back to school Monday and teach your heart out.  Be better.  Be brighter.  Love your students with everything you've got.  Teach them how to love each other."

Tomorrow's for you, Sandy Hook...

No Words...

Thankful that all 24 of my first graders are at home, safe with their families...

You're a Mean One...

Alas, I have finished my Christmas door decorating. Every time I thought I was done, I just kept adding things! Our school is begininning to look as if Christmas threw up in the halls, and I wouldn't have it any other way!  Check out some of the things we did to make our "Grinchy" door decoration!

As I was painting the Grinch and hanging him up, one of the students in our building said "You need a Max!" I went YES I DO! So I set about the process of finding the perfect picture of my little pup, Charlie... I learned that if you're in a PDF file, you have the ability to blow it up and print is as a poster. So that's just what I did to make a larger-than-life-size picture of my doggie. I added the bone to his head to make the PERFECT Max for our doorway!

I wanted to find a way to include pictures of my kiddos, and thought... what better way than to turn them into Who's! So that's just what we did. I drew 4 different Who bodies for them to choose from, and took their picture with their mouth open so it looked like they were singing. I think the final product is nothing short of hilarious. Check these babies out!

I added the snow and trees as an afterthought, as the Who's appeared to be flying... Oh well! And CHECK out these awesome snowflakes that my little firsts made! I was SO surprised at how well they followed directions and cut through all those folds of paper! Made me smile :-)

Stay tuned... Our door decorating contest officially ends tomorrow, and I plan on taking pictures of all the doors in our building. We sort-of went a little overboard... Go big or go home, eh?

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!

Currently...

Found this fun Currently activity from Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade. She also has an awesome blog link-up, so I've been going a little blog crazy!

Listening... Elf has quickly become one of my favorite holiday movies. Had a VERY long day at school, so it was nice to just relax and laugh over a pizza with my awesome wife (who took her whole night designing my new blog layout last night!)

Loving... Today's lesson was "making 10 to add 8." A large chunk of my kids really gets it. There's still a few that have no clue. Imagine my panic prepping for the lesson while knowing that the principal was coming to observe. First off, our principal is AWESOME. Super low key, but an observation is an observation, so totally calm panicking was I. Somehow, all the kids got it. I had them up and moving the whole time, and on his way out the door he said "That was absolutely fantastic." I almost collapsed and cried.

Thinking... I totally bit off more than I could chew for my Christmas door design... Will I EVER finish it?! Pictures soon (once I'm done!)

Wanting... I have yet to have a good cup of cocoa with mini marshmallows. Our elf on the shelf made a marshmallow hot-tub yesterday, and ever since I've been craving.

Needing... I'm terrible at grading things on time. It's almost Friday, and I haven't graded LAST Friday's spelling tests... Oops!

Random Act of Kindness... one of our AMAZING reading specialists is decorating her whole hallway as Whoville, so there's tinsel and lights and snowflakes and glitter galore. I've got a set of light up garland that I'm not using this year, so they're headed her way tomorrow morning.

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!