On the 10th Day of Christmas, The Primary Chalkboard gave to me....

Season's Greetings, Friends! 

It's Leslie from First Grade and Flip Flops! I hope that you have enjoyed our Advent Calendar of fun and freebies! 

On the 10th Day of the Holidays, I am offering you a great FREEBIE especially around this time of year! 

Click on the picture above to grab this FREEBIE!!

I know with my own children wants suddenly become needs and this is a cute little activity as a reminder and lesson about what's really important. 

I am also offering my Math is SNOW Much Fun pack 50% off! It is great for math centers with a winter theme. 

It's only $3.25!! Click on the picture to take you to my store! It will only be discounted for today only! So hurry!

Are you doing ornaments with your students this year? Yes?? Here's a cute and fun way to package your holiday ornament.

Last year, I made these:

I know our sweet Terry had already blogged about these. You can read about them here. Mine are similar but I used clear orbs and stuffed mine with snow. You can read how I did mine here. What I also wanted to do was transport them home in a safe way. All you will need is some Dixie Cups, some shredded paper (used for baskets) and some ribbon. 

You will need 2 of these for each ornament. These will work with the smaller ornaments. Anything bigger and it may not fit. By the way-- a mommy tip: this is also a great way to take home cupcake from a birthday party. The cupcakes fit nicely into the cup. I've taped them together (the cups) and when I get home I cut the sides (so that I just pull apart the side of the cup hopefully leaving the cupcake and frosting in tact!) that way I don't lose any frosting! Ha!! It's all about the sugar!! LOL! 

Put a hole punch under the rims on both sides. Stuff some of the paper on both sides. 

Then, tie the cups together (this part is hard, especially if your ribbon unravels! grrr!). You can attach a little homemade tags from the kids! SO easy and simple.

Hope you will come back tomorrow for more goodies, tips, and surprises!

From my family to yours, I hope that you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday! 

Love to you!

Leslie 

Have You Filled a Bucket Today??

Hey everyone! It's Leslie from First Grade and Flip Flops and I'm here to share with you some character... character education! I'll admit... I'm old school. May not look old school but I am a believer in some well behaved children! 

Can I get an amen???

I mean aren't we all??? Have you ever been out in public and you see and hear some children acting foolishly or saying something you know is totally inappropriate  (hoping and praying and knowing, it better not be yours! ha!) and you want to give them the evil teacher stink eye?? 

Let's face it... as teachers, parents, people of a community, we all want to raise a village of nice kids! 

Every year I love to read this book:

It's a great book that talks about these "buckets" that we all carry. When we use nice words or kind gestures, we fill each other's buckets. However, when we use unkind words or gestures, our bucket's get spilled over and are empty. 

The kids were so silent as I read this book and you can see them start to think of their buckets (and their pets! Pets have buckets, too!) and they begin to relate to the kids in the story.

It is really well written and I encourage all teachers to read this for the beginning of the year to help build a strong community in the classroom. There is even a song that goes along with it:

My class loved it. We talked about how to be bucket fillers at home, in school, and in our community. I did a gallery walk and placed posters around the room and had them write how they were bucket fillers:

Their ideas were so thoughtful and heartfelt! I liked the one for their community where they said 'hi" and "bye" to their neighbors! We will use these to help us write our bucket filler slips for each other. 

I have a hanging shoe rack (sorry, I forgot to take a picture) and each student has a bucket (really, it's a cup with their name on it) where they can fill a slip with a bucket filler form when they notice someone doing something kind or saying a kind word, for example. 

Click to download this FREEBIE!!! 

The kids LOVE going to their buckets and reading what others have to say about them. They gush to the other child how they loved reading their note! Plus, it gets them writing!!! I encourage them to write a bucket filler for someone at least once a day and not the same person in the same week. You know how BFF's are! They'd write one every hour. 

I hope that you will incorporate this into your classroom this year if you haven't done it already. It's a great read! And if I may fill your bucket today..... Thank you for being part of our Primary Chalkboard blog! We so appreciate your support and kindness! We strive to bring the best teaching practices, tips, and tricks to you! Hope you all are having a great school year so far!!!

Lots of love to you!

Leslie