And The Winner Is...

CONGRATULATIONS!!

 The lucky winner of our Holiday Giveaway is

 Mary Straw!

Thank you so much to all of you that 

stopped by  and followed us!

Have a wonderful Winter break!

See you in 2014!

How to Build a Snowman Writing plus a FREEBIE!

     We made these adorable hanging snowmen on Tuesday to display our How to Build a Snowman Paragraphs!  During literacy centers we wrote our rough drafts and then the students recopied their paragraphs onto the circle shaped publishing paper.  The next morning they cut out, decorated, and assembled their snowmen!  It really helped to have a parent at the center to assist the children in the assembly process.  If you don’t have a parent volunteer you may want to assemble them in small groups!  Taping the string to the table will really help!!!  If you want to try this activity it is available on our TPT Store or by clicking here. 

When the students finished their snowmen they had a great time with this Snowman Math Dice Worksheet.  You can grab this freebie here or on our TPT store!

Where Oh Where is the Gingerbread Man?

     Before my kindergartners went home yesterday, I read them the story, The Gingerbread Man, by Jim Alyesworth.  (I was amazed how many of them had never heard the story before.) This morning, I had a big surprise waiting for them. My kiddos were so excited when they came into the room to find gingerbread crumbs all over the counter and tiny brown footprints.  I flipped on my Elmo and SMARTboard and were they surprised. There was a note from the Gingerbread Man!  You should have seen the look on their faces.

     After reading the note together, they were ready to search the school to find him.  We brainstormed all of the places that he might be hiding and made a list.  

We decided to check the principal’s office first to see if he was there.  Luckily, my principal was in on it and had a little treat waiting for us.   They were so precious as we walked back to class looking here and there just hoping to catch a glimpse of him. I just LOVE this time of year!!!! 

When we got back to the room we watched a video on youtube of The Gingerbread Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5aUAxK1ec8&list=RDslidHnMR1yE

and talked about how the story was different from the one we read the day before.  We did a sequencing activity as a group on the SMARTboard and then broke into our center groups and did three different gingerbread man activities: a follow-up cut and paste story sequencing worksheet, Gingerbread Man Roll (rolling number cubes and adding them together to make a Gingerbread Man), and on the computers we visited two different sites, Starfall’s gingerbread man activity http://www.starfall.com/n/holiday/gingerbread/play.htm?f and a great counting activity on topmarks.com http://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/gingerbread-man-game

It was a fun day and as they were walking out the door they were talking about where they are going to look for the Gingerbread Man tomorrow.  You will have to stop by to see where we look next!

Holiday Thank You Giveaway

We are so excited to have finally started blogging!  We are learning as we go with a ton of laughs along the way.  We want to thank you all for supporting our store!  We love what we do and are so glad to be sharing our years of experience with you!

To show our appreciation we are having our FIRST Giveaway! One lucky winner will receive a $25 gift card to Target or Walmart!

You can enter this giveaway three different ways. 

1.       Follow our TPT store and leave a comment to let us know you are following us with your email.

2.      Follow our blog and leave a comment with your email.

3.      Follow us on Pinterest and leave a comment that your following us with your email.

Each of the above ways will count as a separate entry!

We will be having the drawing on December 20^th at noon!

GOOD LUCK!!!
*Remember to make sure you let us know you are following us with a comment and your email so we can contact you if you are the lucky winner!!

Click here for our TPT Store or go to www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/malibu-mutts-kthru2inmalibu

Click here for our Pinterest or go to www.pinterest.com/malibumutts/ 

St. Nicholas Day in Malibu!!!

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Nicholas.  In Germany, children put straw and carrots in their shoes and leave them out for St. Nicholas’ horses on December 5^th.  The next morning they awake to find their shoes filled with small gifts and sweets! 

We used our Christmas in Germany Mini Unit to teach about this holiday.  The students read our non-fiction mini book and completed a fact sheet about St. Nicholas Day.  We are collecting all of our fact sheets to put into our Holidays Around the World Suitcase Journal.  As a culminating activity the students made boots and stuffed them with carrots.  We will see if St. Nicholas visits our class tonight!  This mini unit is available at our TPT store or by clicking here.

Santa Claus Cards

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Today our first graders made Santa Claus Cards to send to a classmate who is recovering from surgery!  We brainstormed a list of things you would say in a Get Well card and did the writing activity in small groups this morning.  Then we made the Santa Card as a whole class.  It worked great!  After finishing the Santa card they put their writing inside and we sent them to the hospital with a little stuffed animal as a get well present!  If you want the directions and templates for this activity it is available at our TPT Store or by clicking here.

Hanging Santa

HO! HO! HO! The holidays have hit and our Kindergarteners have been very busy making our classroom festive.  Today we worked on making our hanging Santa craft. It takes a little bit of patience from all but they loved the activity. I hung them up around the room during lunch. Giggles erupted as they searched for their own very unique hanging Santa.

If you would like to have your room filled with this darling Santa you can find it at our TPT store or by clicking here.

Skip Counting Rudolph!!!

We had so much fun making these hands and feet Rudolph Reindeer today!  The students began by cutting out a brown shoe shape and then a red circle for a nose.  They glued the nose to the narrow end of the shoe shape.  Then they used black hand for the antlers.  We used the die-cut hands but they could cut out their own as well.  Once they had glued the hand onto the back of the reindeer we had them design their own eyes.  Some students used two circles- one blue and one white but others just used a white circle.  They added a black pupil in the center of the white circle and glued them onto the front of the reindeer.  Students then came to the rug and we counted the reindeer and the reindeer eyes.  Each student added their reindeer to the class number line and completed a tag that told how many reindeer and eyes were on the number line.  We hung it in the window and they couldn’t wait to bring in their parents to show off their work.  If you want to try this activity you can grab it for free on our TPT store or by clicking here!  

Hope you enjoy it!

Tangled Rudolph

                              

Reindeer Math Craftivity

Yesterday our K students had fun making a Rudolph craft. Today we finished it in our math center while working on subtraction. Each student was given a copy of a 10 frame made with holiday lights.  I slipped each one into a plastic cover so we will be able to use them for the rest of the week.  The students each had a number cube that they rolled. They subtracted this number from 10. They wrote the equation and crossed off the lights with a dry erase marker to solve the problem.  

After many rounds of practice, we read the Rudolph problem together from our TPT packet, Reindeer Math Craftivity. The students then solved the problem and recorded their answers on the activity worksheet.  They then glued that number of lights paper lights around the Rudolph craft from the day before.  I added black yarn and they turned out adorable! If you would like to purchase this activity, you can visit our TPT store or click here!

Hanukkah, Hats, and a little HO, HO, HO!!!

The smell of latkes was in the air as our 1st grade students read their non-fiction mini Hanukkah books and completed a fact sheet for their Holidays Around the World Suitcase Journal. Students enjoyed a latke with applesauce and played the dreidel game. We saved ourselves some time and bought the latkes from Trader Joe's. They are in the frozen section (we found them with breakfast foods)! 10 minutes in the oven and they are a delicious treat! If you want to try the mini book and fact sheet you can get it from our TPT store by clicking here. We have a total of 5 holidays up now and will be putting up 2 more in the next few days!  

Yummy Latkes and Applesauce

The count down to 2014 has begun!  Our students created these adorable countdown mats today!  We had everyone write two things they wanted to learn in 2014 and put that on the mat with the hat, instructions, and a bag of tissue squares.  We put them up on our lower bulletin boards so the kids can continue to add the tissue paper flowers to their hats.  We are going to send them home with the kids to complete over winter break.  If you want this activity you can get it from our TPT store by clicking here.  We also have a Snowman Countdown to Winter Activity available. 

Check it out by clicking here. 

Countdown to 2014 Bulletin Board

Reindeer are running around in our North Pole Stables!  We made these adorable glyphs to decorate our door.  Students completed the glyph worksheet first.  This made it easier for us to pass out the correct papers to the students.  We put all the pieces in baggies to make the process run even smoother.  We found that having the students cut out all the pieces first made the assembly of the reindeer a breeze!   The only pieces we did not put in the baggies were the candy canes.  We glue gunned them onto the reindeer so they would not fall off.  Tape would work as well.  We made our door into a stable to finish the look!  

If you want to try this glyph you can get it on our 

TPT store by clicking here.

North Pole Stables!

Thankful Feast!

Today we had our annual Thanksgiving Feast!  Yesterday the students worked in centers to make the food for their Thanksgiving lunch.  They made corn muffins, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie!  Wow!  The room needed some cleaning but they sure had fun!

We invited our parents to join us in this celebration!  Each student read one thing they were thankful for from their Thankful Turkeys and then they all pigged out!  Now we have to go home and cook our third turkey of the week!  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Pilgrims! Pilgrims! Pilgrims!

In our K class we have been learning all about the voyage of the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving.  Today we made cute Pilgrim girls and boys to go along with our 3D Native Americans.  The students had so much fun creating these cute faces and writing about how to save a turkey. They were very clever with their answers.  One student wrote “Save a turkey! Eat tofu!”  They look darling on the cabinets next to our Feather Frenzy Turkey math problems.  The room looks so festive for next week’s feast.  Everyone is bringing a vegetable to share and put in our class soup while we make cornbread, homemade butter, and a frosted turkey treat during morning centers.   It will be a great way to end this unit.

If you want the patterns for this 3D craftivity you can find them on our TPT store or by clicking here.  The speech bubble is not included in the packet but you can grab a freebie here.

MATH TURKEY

Today we made math turkeys in our two first grade classrooms.  We differentiated our math turkeys to meet our students' needs.  Students who needed extra fact family practice worked on the fact family turkey (above) in one class while other students worked on mastery of addition facts (below) in the other classroom.  If you want to try this math turkey craftivity with your class you can grab this freebie here.  Our kids loved making these!  Please let us know how this activity went by commenting below.

Check our TPT store for more activities and freebies! 

Thanksgiving Math Activities

We are so excited to finally have our blog up!!!

For the past two weeks our first graders have been working on Thanksgiving activities. 

Each month our students create a glyph!  This month we were so pleased with the results!  These 3-D turkey glyphs turned out adorable!  They are even cuter when you add a real feather to the turkey if you have some available. 

Aren’t they great!  You can find this project on our TPT store by clicking here.   We hope your students enjoy it as much as ours did!

Continuing with our math theme, our students created Pattern Block Turkeys and graphed the information.  We used a paper plate instead of construction paper so the turkey body stood out from the pattern block tail.  Before students attached the body to the tail they completed a tally mark chart of the shapes they used.  Students used this worksheet to record the information on the graph.  They were so focused on designing their turkey tails you could hear a pin drop!  It was the perfect day for a visit from the principal! 

You can find this activity on our TPT store or by clicking here! 

Hope you enjoy it.  
Be sure to check back for more fun activities!!!