The Holiday Book Exchange

Sarah Hawes' Christmas tree, fireplace and snow globe!

Each year the Reading Council hosts a Holiday Book Exchange.  They provide the food and hot chocolate.  Teachers are invited to come in their tacky holiday sweaters and bring a new holiday book in a gift bag.  Sarah Hawas, on the left, is our annual Tacky Sweater Winner for her creative and fun sweaters through the years. The event has become very popular and this year we had about 60 teachers participate.  One of the reasons that it is so popular is that Susan Phillips, our fearless leader, decided the exchange was going to be a Chinese gift exchange and she writes the rules (and the rules sometimes change!)  It is hilarious fun!  Each teacher gets a number as she comes into the room with the books in their festive bags in the front of the room.  Beginning with number 1, that teacher chooses a bag.  Then the next teacher can either steal that book or choose a new book.  The most coveted number is #1 because that teacher gets to choose the first book and then at the end after all the books have been unveiled, gets to make a final choice.  The exchange continues and by the time we get to about number 20, popular books can get stolen many, many times.  Susan does have a "3 rule:" Once a book has been stolen three times, it is dead and belongs to the holder of the book at that time.  The good news is that you usually get a book that you like.  Most teachers are trying to add to their class library and some are adding to their person family library. 

After steals and being stolen from, I ended up with the delightful and new (2015 copyright) How to Catch Santa, which will be a gift to my newest grandson. Pete the Cat Saves Christmas was another popular choice this year, but it is the fun that brings the teachers.  In this busy, busy season, it's just a nice bit of fun to add to the festive spirit and one of those traditions that you just don't want to miss.

Book Exchange

There are some things that even a picture can't do justice and our annual Holiday Book Exchange is one of those things.  It's simple, really.  Everybody that wants to participate comes with a children's holiday book in a bag to the Mallard's room (which is a treat itself because it is already festive and full of little holiday touches that just make me smile).  Teachers don't follow instructions very well so even though the instructions are to put your book in a bag, about a fourth of them come wrapped. When you walk in - 20 minutes before the school day starts- you get a number and breakfast furnished by Reading Council (which means I had to get up at 6:15 to heat ham biscuits and talk my husband into helping me).  There is a little time for fellowship... and then it starts.  Led by that wacky Principal Grinch, the haggling and stealing begins... and oh my, it is so much fun!

During a season when it's just too easy to get stressed, this moment of fun and laughter is a welcome respite.  And, did I mention that you also have to wear a tracky sweater?  Now, I have a closet full of tacky sweaters that were once a most important part of my teacher wardrobe, but these folks take this tacky sweater thing seriously as evidenced by delightful little Sarah in her adorable "stockings by the fire".  The outfit also comes with a frame around her head. 

It's really not work when you enjoy your job this much!

Holiday Book Exchange

What an absolutely FUN morning.  Teachers in their tacky sweaters each came with a holiday book and took a number.  Beginning with the number 1, each teacher chose a book from the table, but teachers could also steal a book from a colleague instead of choosing a new book.  Let the FUN begin!  Thanks to the Reading Council and Chair Melanie Holtsman for designing such a fun event and to Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard for making sure their room was holiday-ready!  Work hard - play hard!

How to eat a candy cane

As we return from the Thanksgiving break, it is time to turn our thoughts toward the winter holidays.  The children had a treat this morning as we started writing a new "how to" piece.  We brought out Jelly Belly-flavored candy canes and talked about the different ways that we get the shrink-wrapped paper off the candy cane - Do you tear or cut? Do you take all the paper off at one time or do you unwrap a little at a time so your hands don't get sticky?  Then we talked about the different ways that people eat a candy candy - Do you lick or bite?  Do you start with the stick or the curve?  Do you lick it to a point?  After talking about it, we decided to eat a candy cane and then write about the best way to eat a candy cane.  Below is just one example of a child's procedural writing.

First you go get a candy cane.  Then you take the paper off.  Then you lick it.

Second you keep licking it until it is all gone. Yummy!

Happy Valentine Day

One of my favorite things to do with children is to let them create something from their own imaginations.  So today, we gave the children a folded white sheet of card stock - a blank canvas - to make a Valentine card.  We also put several pieces of colored construction paper cut into different sizes, some heart patterned paper, and some pink, red, and white foam hearts out for the students to use.  The only instruction was on how to make a heart - fold a piece of paper in half, draw the number 2 starting on the folded edge and then returning to the folded edge before the straight bottom line.  Then cut out the heart - A few students even figured out how to make a heart within a heart.  Moms and Dads and Grandmas and Grandpas got really special Valentines today!

Happy 100!

I'm not sure we did anything different than any other class celebrating the 100th day of school today, but we sure had lots of fun!  We started with the children explaining their 100 collections that they brought from home.  My favorites were shark's teeth and Q-tips!  One student just poured Cheerios into a Ziploc.  When we asked if he was sure he had 100 Cheerios, he admitted to not counting so we made him count them during snack!  No free rides.  My favorite collections were the ones brought in by Mrs. Mallon and Mrs, Dillard's class in water bottles!  Love this idea!

Then we made the cutest hats ever.  Not only were they fun but the children had to put 10 dots on each of 10 strips of paper and then write from 1-100.  We used extra bulletin board border so the prep was really fast.  The 10 snack is always a hit! The kids get so excited about counting 10 pieces of 10 different snack foods and didn't realize that they are actually working on counting skills!

The 100 Fruit necklace is another favorite.  The youngsters are encouraged to string 10 of one color before switching colors so they can practice counting to 10 and seeing that 100 is really just ten tens.

We hid 100 Hersey Kisses and then challenged the children to find them and put them on the 100s chart. We did such a good job of hiding the kisses that we still haven't found five of them!  Is it possible that one of the kids ate the missing 5?

I know it seems like everything this year was has been food but we also played the 100 Dice Game and rolled dice, coloring in the sum of each throw to see how many roles it would take to reach 100.

 

To offset the sweets, we did 100 exercises, but we are the SWEET Shoppe so... we ended the day with cupcakes!

Such a fun day!

Promise to Kate

One of my favorite traditions at Chets Creek is our "Seasons of Giving" project.  Each class is encouraged to support a cause that teaches the children about giving and service during the holiday season.  Classes choose deserving projects such as supporting Beth Young (a former Chets teacher that is now serving a full time mission in Africa) or collecting blankets for the homeless or  collecting coloring books for Wolfson Children's Hospital.   There is also a toy drive to help 165 families in our Chets Creek family!  There are so many opportunities.  

Our class chose to support "Promise to Kate" which is a foundation started by teacher Elizabeth Conte and her husband to find a cure for myotonic muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that their precious daughter Kate (on the left) was born with.  We are thrilled that other classes and friends have joined us in teaching our children about supporting Kate by making items for a silent auction.  Make sure to stop by our lobby and make a bid on one of the delightful items!  Below is just a sample!

The beautiful pots below were made and donated by our talented Art Teacher, Jen Snead.  

 

 Many of the classes made holiday items that included ornaments made by the children or that included each child's fingerprint.  Aren't they delightful?

Several of the classes collected items for baskets such as the "Chocolate Delicious" below.

Or how about this cake plate with recipe cards?

And look at this delightful basket of monogrammed hand towels made and donated by a Grandma of two of our Chets students!

The Advent calendar below was made and donated by Vickie Holtsman, who has adopted "Promise to Kate" as her platform as "Miss River City Outstanding Teen 2012."

One of my favorite items is ornaments made by a class that can be exchanged for a donation!  I have already picked out my ornaments and plan to make a donation to honor each of my grandchildren!

This is just a sampling of the beautiful items that are available - loving made and given by children who care about Kate!  Give yourself a present this holiday season and stop by our Lobby.  Just stroll through the posters and projects - it'll make you feel good to know that our children are making a difference - and make sure to bid on one of our "Promise to Kate" items!

Fall Celebration Ideas

We start our fall celebration each year with a Literacy Parade.  Some children use their Halloween costumes and just find a book to match and others actually design a costume around a favorite book. As they arrive so full of excitement, we ooooh and ahhhh over the selections before we parade around the downstairs.

 We spend the rest of the day celebrating with fun activities that have a wee bit of academics.

We love "cooking" this year with our "Recipe for Success" theme so our first activity was making a ghost cookie.  The idea actually came from one of our mothers, that has her own cookie blog, that sent the teachers a few ghost cookies as a treat.  We simplified the cookie and the children loved this easy ghost - a Nutter Butter cookie covered with white icing and then two small chocolate chips for eyes and a larger one for the mouth.

When we did our Math Diagnostic earlier this year, we noticed that the students were really struggling with interpreting graphs so we took this opportunity to add some work with graphs. We looked for individually wrapped themed candies.  This year we found colored skulls and bones.  After each child graphed his candies and colored in his graph, we showcased different graphs, asking questions such as. How many more green bones than black skulls?  Which candies have equal amounts.  Make an equation using the red bones and green skulls.  Love that Math practice!

Also from our Math work, we put 10 candy corns and 10 candy pumpkins in a Ziploc for each child and then asked the children to make combinations of ten.  This is a play on our Math Investigations "peas and carrots" activity.  The children used these fun manipulatives to make the combinations and then shared their work in a typical math closing activity.

It seems like one of the things that often gets cut in our curriculum is art.  So... today we did our own version of pumpkin making.  Each pumpkin had its own personality!

After lunch we cut the traditional jack-o-lantern.  I am always amazed at the number of children who say they have never cut a jack-o-lantern. Every single child had a chance to stick a hand inside the pumpkin and pull out some "gunk".  Then we reviewed geometric shapes as we made a group decision on the shapes of the eyes, nose and mouth.  We lit the jack-o-lantern with a flashlight to shine tonight as the children came back to trick-or-treat during our annual school wide Fall Festival.  We saved the seeds to count and cook another day.

This year we also cut the top off one of the smaller pumpkins, cleaned it out, and replanted a few of the seeds inside the pumpkin.  The idea is to let the seeds sprout in the window and then replant the pumpkin (shell, soil and sprout) in a larger pot before the shell rots!  Will let you know how it goes.

Parents' Celebration

It's that time of year when many classroom celebrate Mother's Day.  In Mrs. Ruark and Mrs. Timmons' kindergarten classroom they combine Mothers and Fathers and have a "Parents Day" Celebration.  They invite mothers and fathers in for a brunch between the two holidays.  This year they decorated the desks with placemats made by the chidren and with  "Happy Parents Day" cards.  They added fresh flowers to each table.   Each child practiced going to get his waiting parent in the hallway and invited them into the room.  The children were so proud to be walking their parents into the room and showing them their placemats and cards.

The agenda was posted on the board.

The parents and children started by eating!

They played a few games.  For one of the games, the parents sent in baby pictures and as the pictures flashed on the screen each child and parent tried to guess who it was.  The parent child combination with the most matches won a prize.  I don't know who enjoyed the game more - the parents or the children!

The highlight of the morning was the booklet that the children presented to their parents.  The children had worked on them all week in Writers' Workshop.  Below is one example.

Such a wonderful morning of celebration!