Five for Friday January 24

 

I am linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! This is always my favorite link up.   Thank you, Kacey for  hosting it.

 

Sweet Michelle, the 3AM Teacher, made me a great new button for my blog- that actually FITS when I join a linky party!

THANK YOU Michelle! You are wonderful!  I love it! 

 

 

It's been a C.O.L.D. week, but it's warmed up to a balmy zero degrees. My kids were really great, considering that they were stuck inside all week.  Time for some favorite ideas of the week!

Here is a sweet little Valentine activity or gift to make.  My daughter Emily  made one of these for me in Sunday school one year when she was little, and I hung it in my kitchen window forever! I loved it. 

 

First, you start with some inexpensive gloves.  Now is a good time to find some on sale- at the Dollar Store or Walmart.  If I am going to make these, I try to stock up on gloves the year before I want them, whenever I find them on sale.   You can use any color. I just like red, I don't know why. (Actually, I do know why- it is because I am so picky like that and Valentine's day = red or pink in my mind, so I like the red and pink ones. )



The children put just a little batting or stuffing (or even cotton) up into each finger and some in the palm of the glove.



 

You hot glue the third and fourth finger down.

Put some ribbon through the fingers that are glued down.  I didn't have nice, satin ribbon for this one, so I used curling ribbon.

I have the children decorate a beautiful heart and write, "I love you!"  Then, I hot glue that onto a little ribbon and hot glue the top of the ribbon inside the glove.

That is it- so easy and so sweet. 

I have always called these "Love Gloves" because my kids always got a kick out of seeing the word "love" in "glove," and it just seemed like a perfect name.

I googled "Love Glove" just to see if I could find any like mine- and I didn't, BUT I did find this sweet idea!

This Love Glove idea is from Inkablinka.  I thought it was a darling gift idea! She got her sister gloves as a gift, and tacked down the fingers to make the "I love you" sign before she sent them- then covered the stitch with a little pin.  So precious!

 

We made some hearts to hang over the lockers for February.  I had the children cut out the hearts.  I traced half a heart on a folded piece of paper, and taught them how to cut it folded to make a heart.  Each child wrote  "Love is"  and then told me what they thought love is.  I typed it out (using Vanessa's Valentine Font).  The different answers were so sweet.  I took each child's picture saying, "I love you" in sign language.

This one was sort of rockin out with her double "I love you's!"  (Oh, and I was hoping she was going to add 'on the inside' to the being pretty part. But nope.  Just plain pretty.)

 

 After I screened all my sweeties to see which sight words were still tricky to read and write, I made each student who still needed some help their very own Word Wall Roll game to take home. A few years ago, I ordered a bag of the blank wooden dice- with no real plan in mind for them.  I have used them for so many things.  I love having them available to use for things like this, so I can send games home with the kids to practice.  I printed out directions, several copies of the game, and included the die with the words and a sheet of stickers in each child's bag.

Monday morning, one of my boy's mothers walked him down to the room and said, "We played that game five times over the weekend, and then when my husband came home, we played it again with him!  That made it all worth it. I told myself that even if one family used it with their child, that is one child who got a lot of extra word practice.  I know a couple didn't even take it out of the folder, but maybe they will discover it and use it.  I keep reminding the kids to play it, so maybe if they nag enough...

The Trendy Teacher has a free Roll a Sight Word download at TPT.  It  looks much more professional than mine.

We had lots of fun reading There's No Such Thing as a Dragon and making our own dragons underneath the "dragon teeth" hanging from the roof.   

Just click on the picture below to go to my post if you would like a copy of the poem we used to make our activity.

 

I updated my post and added this great song from Dan Colquhoun.  Check out his Youtube Channel for so many fun, educational songs!  Here is the one that is perfect for this lesson  and if you want to review that tricky letter d, too:



I found this card on the ground (in the mud) by my car the other day after school. 

 

The glass-half-full part of me thought, "Oh what a sweet card!"  The glass-half-empty part of me panicked and though "Ut oh- why did I find this card?"  I didn't want to end up as a Chicken Soup for the Soul story as the girl who found this comforting card and then...

 

Anyway, I waited long enough and all is well. So... What a sweet card!   

 

It's from Conscious Discipline- must be somebody went to a conference or something.  And then got frustrated and threw out their card and forgot to breathe.  Probably. Actually, I feel bad that someone lost it because it is sweet.   I am keeping it in my car.  The "star" stands for Smile. Take a deep breath. And Relax. 

 

 

We are on our way to Niagara Falls for my daughter Emily's Senior Recognition Swim Meet at Niagara University this weekend.  I cannot believe she will graduate in May.  I feel like my kids should still look like this in the swimming pool...  

 

Time FLIES!

 

 



Have a beautiful weekend!

 

 

 

 

There's No Such Thing as a Dragon

This is a fun little winter activity that I have always loved to make with my class.  At first you may not see the correlation between dragons and winter- but... you'll see!

First, I read There's No Such Thing as a Dragon by Jack Kent, to my class.

Any dragon book will work- this is one I have had forever, and it is a cute one. This is a good book for a discussion about real and imaginary things.  The children love giving examples from the book about why they think the dragon is imaginary.  It's also about how important it is to notice things- people who may need a friend or be sad, or pets who need some love, or even details in pictures!

Next, I read the poem to the class and show some pictures like these to help explain the poem. As soon as I show these pictures, it all makes more sense! The children like to share their icicle experiences, too.

 

Finally, we do our fun little activity to go with the poem. 

I print out this roof on red paper. 

Yes- I drew that roof by hand.( I know- you can hardly believe it because it looks so much like an architect drew it, right?)  I'm sure you can make one more fancy, but this gives you an idea, anyway. 

The children cut out the roof. They always usually  cut off that chimney, so I model how to cut around the outside of the lines. I go over and over it- and still- have the tape ready. Guess what? Today  nobody cut off the roof! 

They pull apart a cotton ball for smoke dragon breath coming out of the chimney.

I give each child a strip of white paper so they can cut icicles to hang from the roof.  I model this a lot, too.  The kids had fun trying this part.  I also have some pre-made icicles, just in case someone gets frustrated. That isn't the goal of this lesson! Today- I  had quite a few who wanted the pre-made icicles. 

Finally, they glue on a copy of the poem, and the roof is complete.

Here is a copy of the poem paper if you would like it.  You can just click on the picture to get a copy of it.

The next step is drawing the dragon that lives underneath those icicles! 

I print out several different copies of "How to draw a dragon".  Here are several different sites with easy to draw dragons.  I have a copy of each type of drawing on each of the tables as a reference. This is good practice for the children to choose which dragon they want to draw and follow the directions- or freestyle and draw their own fabulous dragon!  I stress DETAILS with this drawing, because adding details to a dragon is so much fun! (You can click on any picture to take you to the page.)

How-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com

 

Lucy Learns.com

 

The Drawbot.com

Blue Tadpole Studio

Here are a few of the finished products.  You will see that most of mine "free-styled" with their dragons.  The sweet part was that they really did use the models and were so proud of their creations.

 



This was one of my favorites because the fire that the dragon was breathing was melting the icicles and making it rain!  

 

 

This one below looked like a really cool dragon with a sassy attitude  blowing smoke.

 

This is one serious fire-breathing dragon...

 

My friend Dan wrote this wonderful Disco Dragon D song that is PEFFECT for this lesson- especially if you want to review that tricky letter d! Thank you, Dan!   Check out Dan Colquhoun's  channel on Youtube.  He is great! 

 

 

Finally, here is a fun little Youtube Dragon Brain Break if it is 6 degrees outside and your children need to MOVE!



So that explains what on earth a dragon has to do with winter!  Have fun!