December Writing Freebies

Hi Friends!!! It's Latoya of Flying into First Grade!!!

I am here to bring you some writing ideas for the month of December!!!

These are great freebies that can be used to practice many types of writing during the holiday season.

1. How to Decorate a Christmas Tree (procedural writing)

  

2. The Best Holiday Gift (opinion writing)

  

3. All about Reindeer (informative writing)

  

4. A Holiday Story (narrative writing)

  

Happy Holidays!!!

Gifts For The Holidays

Hi everyone,

I'm stopping by today to show you what my students are making for their parents this year. I love giving my students the chance to create a gift for their parents during the holidays. Moms and dads give their kids so much all year so I think it's important to allow our students to thank their loved ones with a special present.

This year, we are making coupon books!

My students are having a blast coloring all their coupon pages and are ready to help out around their homes during their holiday break.

I let them add their own ideas to their books and I think this was their FAVORITE part! 

I love the ideas they came up with :)

You can pick up your coupon book for FREE in my TPT store.

Enjoy and happy holidays,

Valerie

Christmas Lights Card and a Freebie

Hi all, it's Emma from Clever Classroom.  

I'm a little bit excited about Christmas.  How about you?  Come on, just a little bit? 

I love this time of year because after we wind down, we can spend time with family and friends and actually relax a bit!   I hope you have plans to relax too. 

I also love this time of year for the decorations and yummy food, ah the food, the dessert, the candy .... oh, I digress!

Anyway, I wanted to bring you a Christmas card idea that is really simple and only needs a few materials.

Are you making cards with your students for their families this year?

If you are and you are after something a bit different, then you might like this idea. 

I used my all time favorite throw away material..... bottle caps!

Yes, if you know me and my blog, I'm crazy for bottle caps!  I even have a Pinterest board for brilliant bottle cap ideas! 

Okay,  here's what you do to create this simple card with your students!

You will need:

one piece of paper per child, folded in half

glue (glue sticks)

scissors

ribbon (if you don't have ribbon, students could draw on the string in different lengths. 

bottle caps

paint
and glitter


Procedure:

1. Fold the page in half.

2. Cut string at different lengths. Paste on the string (not too close to the edge - see picture).

3. Print bottle caps, flat side down onto the paint and under the string.
4. Sprinkle glitter on over the wet paint.
5.  Allow to dry and write on the front and inside of the card. 

All done!

 As it's almost Christmas, I wanted to give you a little freebie to say thank you for supporting our blog.

I am so grateful that you drop by to see what we're doing here in the Primary Chalkboard blog.

We have BIG things planned for the December so be sure to pop back in.

I hope this freebie helps you plan out your centers this December.

For more Christmas resource that will surely save you time this December, pop by my store, I have dozens of Christmas resources!

Make a Christmas Gift with Your Students

Hi everybody!  This is Terry from Terry's Teaching Tidbits.  As we celebrate Thanksgiving in a few days and get ready to move on to Christmas, I wanted to share a fun holiday activity that you can make with your students.

At my school, we always have a holiday party on the last day before winter break.  In order to maintain some classroom management while celebrating, we usually like to have a craft or some type of activity for the kids to do to keep them occupied.

If you're looking for a fun, easy project to make with your students, I have the perfect one for you.  Years ago I found an adorable Christmas ornament project online and tried it with my class.  It worked out brilliantly!  You can have your students make these adorable ornaments and give them to their parents as a gift.

This makes a great gift because it's personal and it is a gift that their family can take out and see again each and every year.  My parents STILL have ornaments that I made in elementary school and I love looking back at them when I come home to visit all these years later.

Here's how to make them:

1.  Choose an ornament (it can be any color, but I liked blue because it made it look more like a snowman outside.

2.  Paint the palm of the child with white paint.  I used tempera paint.

3.  Have them hold the ornament in the palm of their hand, (not too tightly) with the bottom of the ornament in the middle of their palm.  The white area that is made by the palm of the hand will appear to be the snowy ground and each fingerprint represents an individual snowman.

4.  Once the paint has dried, provide Sharpies to decorate each fingerprint to resemble a snowman.  I added buttons, a scarf, eyes, nose, mouth, and top hat.

5.  Present the ornament as a gift and hang on the tree!  :)

I hope you like the idea!  I can't wait to see what other ideas people have to share for the holidays.  There are only a few more weeks left, so have a Happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy New Year, and Happy any other holiday that you may be celebrating this season.  :)

~ Terry

Sweet Holiday Measuring!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Happy Holidays, Winter! lol...I'm not sure what you are allowed to call it at your school, but in most places it has become "winter" instead of Christmas!

These measuring ideas, however, could be used for measuring during this month, no matter WHAT you call it!

My measurement unit normally doesn't fall during the holidays, but this year it did, which has been a BLAST! We've measured with holiday flavored M&M's, candy canes, gingerbread men...you name it!

My camera wasn't with me when we did our candy cane measuring yesterday, but it was so much fun! I brought in mini and regular sized candy canes and had students first estimate the lengths of objects, then measure them with their mini and regular candy canes. YUMMY non-standard units are so fun!!!

I made this FREEBIE to go along with this candy cane measuring center! Feel free to grab it and if you like it, please leave me some feedback! CLICK here to download this free math center!

Thanks for stopping by!!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS! :)