Five for Friday December 18

Happy Friday!  I'm linking up with Kacey for her wonderful Five for Friday Linky to share some favorite holiday fun from this week. Thank you, Kacey!  

                                                                  

I LOVED this picture from Mrs. Russell's Room!  

Anyway...  We don't.

The kids are so precious and excited for Christmas. It's a fun energy to be around. It's just lots and lots of energy to be around and try to gear toward learning until December 23rd!  

Here are some ways we found to make it fun last week!

                                                      

The kids had so much fun with Snowball Pass! Since we don't have any of our own REAL snow, we  made some of our own.   Each child got a piece of scrap paper with a sight word written on it.  

Once they read their word, they crumpled it into a "snowball."

When I said, "Pass," they passed the snowball.  Sometimes I said it fast- sometimes slow.

When I said, "Read and Wrinkle!" they had to open and read their word to their neighbor, then wrinkle it back up to go again. 

When we were done, I said, "SNOWBALL FIGHT!"  After they threw their snowball, they had to pick one up and read it to me before they could go to their seats. 

Here's some more fun with sight word practice.  We love practicing sight words with our Rocket Word activity!  It's a great brain break- simple/fast/fun- and requires nothing but little bodies. The kids really have to think how many letters they are going to be saying and how low they need to go!  Here's a little sample.

It's one of the ideas in my book with Dr. Jean, by the way...

Our math book comes out in January.  I'm so excited!  I love the ideas we put together for math, too!

We don't send homework home at our school with the kindergarten students.  We send a book home to read each night, and sometimes we send a special activity to complete.  When I send home an activity, I like to put something special on their paper when they return it.

This was one of the holiday homework pages that I sent home.  I sent this paper with a special Christmas paper plate to eat dinner on, and then the children  had to draw and label what they ate.

This is a fun activity to do anytime of the year with any paper plate- even a plain white one! 

You can get the worksheet that I used HERE with my other holiday homework ideas.  (It's Number 5 on that week's Five for Friday- so you can just scroll down to that.)  

I put on a star Post-it with a Starburst stuck in the middle with double sided tape when they brought it back.

My kids are having so much fun with the Vet Center.  They make appointments, take care of the sick pets, weigh and measure the pets, feed them, and write a report about each pet they take care of.  I love, love, love that it is so real to them. They learn so much working together and see why knowing how to write is so important.  They need to get down all the information about those pets!  I love switching out my free choice centers.  

And sometimes the little animals just need to have a story read to them! 

Here is the little vet sheet that I made for the kids to use.  I have clip boards for them to use or just these sheets on the table so they can write about the pets they see. If you would like a copy, just click the picture below!

Here are some of the reports from last year's vet center that still make me smile. 

"Her head is bleeding.  Puttin pressure in and stitch and put on a bandaid."

"She is dying in 54321.  Use every tool in the world."

This one is pretty self explanatory...  he's fat and needs kitty liposuction. 

But this one may be my favorite... It was on my desk after free choice. 

We have been working on writing true stories during Writer's Workshop. Here are the anchor charts that I made.  The bottom "playground scene" idea is from the Lucy Calkin's books.  

Thank you for stopping by!  If you are off for break, enjoy every second. If you have three more days, hang in there. We can do it!  

Merry Christmas to all of you!