Christmas catch up!

Before I get stuck into all things 2015, there were a few Christmas activities that we did at the end of the year, that through the hectic rush of finishing up, I didn't manage to post about. Because I love Christmas so much I just couldn't not share them!

The first activity I found on...have a guess...Pinterest! I'm going to be honest and tell you that it was a lot more work than I had anticipated. There were quite a few steps involved, but I was so happy with how they turned out that I think it was definitely worth it.

Being a Catholic school it was important what we continued to talk about the reason behind the celebration. I found the inspiration for this craft on Pinterest as well. It didn't have a template so I made one myself, and also found 'The Legend of the Candy Cane' poem that we stuck at the top. 

I absolutely loved this craft and the little wonders enjoyed making it.

This next one was also inspired by Pinterest...seriously what did teachers do before Pinterest?!

They were super cute and very easy. The kids had a great time decorating them with glitter and pom poms. Some of them also added moustaches to their tree's faces hehe.

By the end of term 4 my kids know the Christmas Story like the back of their hand. To test how well they knew it we played a game of celebrity heads using the characters from the story. There were lots of giggles when I'd write cow or donkey. I was very proud of the questions they came up with. 

This years parent Christmas gift was 100% inspired by Maria Manore at Kinder Craze. I've wanted to do this for years and finally got myself organised early enough to do it. Head over to Kinder Craze and listen to Maria's gorgeous class recite the carol. 

The children each used decoupage to cover an iPad box with Christmas paper, and placed tissue paper inside it along with their CD. This has got to be my favourite Christmas gift ever.

I hope you can take some of these activities and do them with your own class this Christmas. 

Thanks for reading!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

...in my classroom anyway! 

Oh how I wish we had a white Christmas in Australia.

We have been SUPER busy at school list term. With swimming, reports, school athletics carnival and testing, it has been full on! As of last week Christmas officially hit my classroom, and I absolutely love it! We've been doing Christmas writing, Christmas maths, Christmas art, Christmas cooking and Christmas reading. 

I've got heaps to show you, so I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday. Enjoy!

At the start of the week we received a super special delivery all the way from the North Pole! 20 eager faces watched as we unwrapped our parcel and found that it was our elf on the shelf! Needless to say my little wonders we all very excited! Inside the parcel we found our elf, a letter from Santa, a DVD and a candy cane for everyone. He spent the day watching us from his box, making sure everyone was working hard. This year he has been named Mr. Bauble (let's be thankful it wasn't Trevor or Simon as some of them suggested).

The next day we found him on top of our smart board, looking very cheeky indeed!

This has to be one of my ABSOLUTE favourite Christmas keepsakes I've made with any class, and will be one I do every year from now on. The little wonders coloured in and cut out five characters from the Christmas story (courtesy of Kari Bolt). They laminated them and put them onto a clear mobile that I purchased from Zart Art (an art supply company in Australia). I cannot say how happy I am with how they turned out.

I received a beautiful message from the mother of one of my kids, saying how special it was.

How flippin' cute are these guys!! 

These are our 'Snowmen Catching Snowflakes'. My little ones cut out all the parts of the snowman, including his arms, nose and scarf. They then stuck some gorgeous snowflake sequins above his head and drew on a perfect dotted mouth. We did catching snowflake self portraits last year with oil pastel, and I think this is a great version of it. 

There were a few different versions of this art work that I found on Pinterest, but my main inspiration came from We Heart Art.

Can you believe we ran out of snowflakes on the last one! One of my little wonders had to use silver stars instead, he didn't mind :)

One of our writing activities this week was to imagine Santa was stuck in our chimney. I played the song for them on YouTube and then we brainstormed ways we could get him out. 

I found a pin for this writing activity about 2 years ago. I found the brick pattern and Santa's boots on google images and made up the writing temple myself. 

Click here for the free template. 

I use to hate glitter! I would absolutely dread getting it out. Now I don't know what's changed but  I seem to be more and more game to get the glitter out. My little wonders used guided drawing to create these super cute reindeer. They painted them with brown paint and used stippling to create texture in their fur. After they dried they outlined them with black markers, added cheeks, eyes, a mouth and a nose, and put red or gold glitter on their nose depending on wether they had a red or brown nose. As you can see, red was a much more popular choice. 

Mind you we did realise afterward that we'd forgotten the ears! Oh well. 

I hope you've enjoyed my Christmas themed Five for Friday! 

Happy Blogging.

TGIF...or should I say TGIS??

Happy weekend everyone! For the next two days I have no plans and am looking forward to doing absolutely nothing....except reading blogs and watching youtube hauls and tutorials. 

In my opinion there is no better way to celebrate the week than to link up with Doodle bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. So here are 5 things to share from my week!

Incase you didn't know, 'Healthy Bones Action Week' is coming up (the 3rd-10th August to be exact) and to get my little wonders thinking about their bones and ways to keep them healthy and strong, we did a super cute craftivity where they made a skeleton out of cotton buds and wrote a response to

 'My bones are brilliant because..'

They turned out so cute. It was good to see some of the children create skeletons with jointed arms and legs. Clever little things!

Our writing focus at the moment is procedure writing, which always results in making fun and often yummy treats to write about. This week we made milkshakes and wrote a procedure for it using a template from my Procedure Writing Template pack (which is available on TPT).

We made chocolate and strawberry flavoured milkshakes. One guess which was more popular!

I have the most gorgeous photo of one of my little wonders with a milk moustache that I wish I could show you!

 One of the activities we complete in Religion this week was to create a family tree for Jesus.

We've been reading a lot of stories about Him as part of our 'Life of Jesus' unit which the children really enjoy. Building up their bank of scripture stories is a real focus in this unit. 

 (I don't know how she managed to spell Jesus wrong! lol)

 This little wonder always produces the neatest work, ruled lines, perfect circles and beautiful handwriting. I'm forever using his work as an example for the other students. 

Our art focus for the week was watercolour. As I was scouring Pinterest for inspiration I came across a blog post on Kids Artists (original idea from Use Your Coloured Pencils) that used watercolour to create David Hockney inspired art.

First the little wonders drew themselves in their bathers floating. They then used oil pastel to colour their picture in, and using a white pastel, drew wavy lines in a grid pattern all over their page. 

After they completed their picture they used a mixture of green and blue watercolour paint to wash over their entire page. They looked fantastic! The white pastel lines looked like the tiles on the bottom of the pool. 

If you know me or read my blog then you know I have a completely normal HUGE obsession with clipart, namely Krista Wallden's clipart! I had been waiting months for Krista to release her Zoo Animal Clipart set, and when she finally did I bought it the very same day and created a transformation activity for our maths focus on flips, slides and turns. Before we did this activity some of the little wonders had seen the sheet on my desk and were constantly asking when we were going to do it. I was overjoyed to see that they loved it just as much as I did! They took so much care in their colouring, and just like Krista, used light and dark versions of the same colour to create contrast.  I'll admit we spent more time colouring in than doing the actual activity, but hey...gotta practice those fine motor skills right?

I hope you've all had a great week, wether you're at school or starting to get ready for the new school year. 

Happy blogging everyone!

New Life, New Ideas, New Love!

The countdown to Easter has begun! And we have been very busy thinking of ways we can help others during the Christian season of Lent.

I don't know what it is about Easter, but it seems so hard for the little wonders to keep track of which days relate to each event. So in a bid to help my kids remember we have been reading, re-reading, sequencing, role playing and drawing the Easter Story, and will continue to do so for the next 2 weeks!

I have been stressing to my students that Easter isn't all about eating chocolate eggs. That its a time to remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us and to celebrate and embrace new life.

To remind us of this during the lead up to Easter we made little crosses out of twigs and planted them in a cup with soil and grass seeds. The little wonders have been eagerly watching and waiting for our tiny seedlings to grow into a garden of green grass. I am very proud of how attentive they have been to their little gardens.

I got the idea for this off Pinterest but couldn't find a link to the original source. If you know of it please let me know so I can share the link to it.