3rd Grade gets Grinchy....without a camera!?!?

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!  And no, it is not summer break!  I actually enjoy Christmas break a LOT more than summer break, for quite a few reasons:

1.  I only need about 2 weeks to regenerate....2 months leads to boredom and unnecessary spending.

2.  Time with family

3.  My husband is off work for a few days

4.  Fun dresses for parties

5.  Pea Coats

6.  Presents:  hubby's birthday, our anniversary, and Christmas

7.  The crazy chance that there COULD MAYBE be a dusting of snow

Need I say more?  Christmas break is just my favorite!  

Over the past couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of super fun different Christmas activities from my classroom, and unfortunately, have not had a camera to capture every moment...blah.  That being said, here is the recap of Christmas in 3rd grade using pictures from the actual creators of the ideas!  Click the link below each picture to visit the website from where I got my idea!

Grinch Day!!

I decided this year to give "Grinch Day" a try, and it actually ended up being more of "Grinch Week".  I had to spread out the activities so that I could spend an adequate amount of time on each one!

Math-3rd grade is currently working on multi-step problem solving (I know you feel my pain here...), and it is so hard!! I chose to use a homemade powerpoint using Grinch themed questions and images to help motivate.  The kids thought it was a hoot!  

Reading-  We started out with a lesson on character traits, and I took this idea from Teaching in High Heels. First, you read aloud the book How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and then you work as a class to come up with character traits to describe the Grinch.  In the idea online, she used adjectives:

http://teachinginhighheels.blogspot.com/

The next day, we had a mini-lesson on similes and metaphors from the song "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch".  LOVED this activity!!  That song is full of metaphors, with a few similes too!  The students had a paper copy with the lyrics from the song, and had to highlight the similes and metaphors in two different colors of highlighters.  Then, each kids wrote an acrostic poem using the letters GRINCH, and writing similes to make up the poem.  They had a great time with this, too!  We also made paper grinches to go along with the poem.  In case you need a refresher:

On the last day of school, we had Grinch punch, which is just sprite, vanilla ice cream, food coloring, and some green sprinkles, and also we made Christmas trees from Whoville, which were sugar cones, white icing, made green with food coloring, and small candies for the ornaments.  We enjoyed all of this while watching the cartoon version of the movie.

idea from:  Kids Creative Chaos

idea from:  Taste of Home

We also spent some time doing holiday writing, using apple cinnamon ornaments and The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg as inspiration.  The kids always enjoy these activities.  To visit my post about apple cinnamon ornaments, click HERE. To see my polar express writing unit on TPT, click HERE.

HO HO HO!  Merry Christmas!  I hope you all enjoy the Holidays as much as I will!

WE MADE IT!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Christmas break!  I sure do LOVE teaching around Christmastime, but I sure do LOVE when we get a nice long break too!  Here are a few highlights from our last week of school!

Christmas around the world:  Welcome to France!! My teammates and I each took one country to teach to our classes in a rotation, and I was in charge of France!  Here are a few pictures from the day-

Noel Banners with construction paper, glue, and glitter



File folder passports



Yules Logs-Swiss Rolls:)

French "Yule Logs"

Yummy!

Reindeer Hands and Feet- This must be the oldest craft in the book, but my kids loved it!  And they definitely personalized all of the reindeer! So stinkin' cute!

And-as promised, pictures of our cinnamon ornaments!  Mix Cinnamon, applesauce, glue, and a little water for some amazing smelling ornaments!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Revisiting the Glory Days.....and apple cinnamon ornaments!

My husband and I were hanging out with some of our friends tonight, laughing about "the good ole' days"-or the "not so good ole' days" depending on which story we are telling at the time:) HA!  When we got home I was perusing through old pictures, and what should I find but a video of us back at cheerleading practice! (My husband and I met on a college cheer team-GO PIRATES!)  Anyway-have a chuckle for yourself!

Anyway-at school this past week we dug into the vivid vocabulary from the Polar Express!  So far so good!  My kids and I are pushing through these last couple of weeks until Christmas, and I am sure that you are too!  I am taking the whole Elf on the Shelf thing really seriously:)  If you are interested in my Polar Express Unit, check it out here!  There is still time to do the unit before Christmas! 

The Polar Express

We are also going to be making Cinnamon applesauce ornaments.  The recipe is super easy, the room smells amazing when they are done!  I'll be posting my own pictures and recipe next week, but if you want to try it with your own kiddos, I found a great blog about it called 5 orange potatoes. Check it out:

http://www.5orangepotatoes.com/blog/2009/12/03/cinnamon-applesauce-ornaments/

Have a fabulous week!