Tag Archives : christmas


December Teacher Talk

 
 
 
 
It’s December and time for our holiday version of Teacher Talk. Getting ready for the holiday festivities or just looking for some great ideas. You don’t want to miss what these creative educators are doing this month.
If you’re interested in joining this unique group of teacher entrepreneurs, blogging buddies and/or our blog linky, sign up here….The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative. If you decide to join, be sure to mention one of our names.
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Connect Kids to the Real World with PBL
 

 

What if you could connect your units of learning to current events without missing a beat with meeting the standards? Find a way to accomplish this here!
 
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Qi Gong and Emotional Well Being
By Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

This past summer, I developed a love of Qi Gong which is a mind-body-spiritual practice that enhances our mental and physical well being by integrating posture, movement, correct breathing, self-massage, sound, and deep focus

 

 

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Beware of Creating Sweeping Generalizations
Be careful not to say way more than you meant to say when comparing adjectives and adverbs.


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Recycle Drinking Straws Into Christmas CreationsBy Margo Gentile of Margo Gentile

Make a beautiful Christmas tree plaque using only drinking straws and paper! Teachers and students will enjoy making these and giving them as gifts. Learning happens incidentally-lots of math, “engineering”, and language skills involved.
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An Ideal Gift
By Gini Musmanno of Reading Spotlight

It costs not a penny! It’s so easy, and it fills everyone (teacher included) with genial feelings! Perfect at this time of year, or anytime! Give this gift to your students.
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Finding Success With a Challenging Class
By Marcy Howe of It’s a Teacher Thing

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My Favorite Teaching Things
By Michelle Webb of Teaching Ideas For Those Who Love Teaching

My favorite things to use in my classroom.  Simple tools to make a teacher’s life easier.  Pleasures perfect for teachers classroom gifts. 
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From a Wanna Be Organizer
By Kathie Yonemura of Tried and True Teaching Tools

Okay, I admit it. . . I’m a wanna-be organizer. I’m envious of those classrooms (and homes!) that never have piles. Here are some tried & true tips for what has helped me (attempt to) tame the chaos.

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Please check out the tips from all the members in this link-up. You’ll find 
some fab ideas.


December Teacher Talk

Posted by Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

It’s December and time for our holiday version of Teacher Talk. Getting ready for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza and New Years, or just looking for some great ideas. You don’t want to miss what these creative educators are doing this month.

 If you’re interested in joining this unique group of teacher entrepreneurs, blogging buddies and/or our blog linky, sign up here….The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative. If you decide to join, be sure to mention one of our names.

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The Quiltmaker’s Gift: Anticipation, Generosity, Reading Lesson Ideas & A Freebie!By Tracy Willis of Wild Child Designs

In this post, I use a picture book, “The Quiltmaker’s Gift” to unpack our thinking about protagonists, antagonists, theme, conflict and persuasive talk and writing. This includes an idea for a motivating Generosity Challenge, too.
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Holiday Musings
By Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

For some of us, this is a joyful time, but there are many who are alone, and unhappy.  Some have no money to buy gifts and others are out in the cold with no homes.  It breaks my heart realizing that some people feel alienated from their families which can lead to depression and in extreme cases, suicide. Our kiddos aren’t immune, they see what’s going on and may not know how to deal.  
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The Great Homework Debate Comes Home
By Retta London of Rainbow City Learning

 

Thoughts on the place homework has in real life. What makes homework authentic and a part of lifelong learning?
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Hour of Code is coming: My top 5 web sites/apps!
By Lisa Robles of LisaTeachR’s Classroom

My top five programs/apps for coding!

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Identifying Learning Disabilities in English Learners
By Rebecca Olsen of 2livNearn

Distinguishing between the second language acquisition process and a learning disability can be tough, even for seasoned professionals. But it’s not impossible to tease apart the two in order to make appropriate educational decisions for students. Click to find out more!  
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How Many Ways Can I Use This Toy?
By Susan Berkowitz of Susan Berkowitz

If you’re gearing up for holiday gift giving, here are some tips for ways to build language through play.
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Wiggly Kids: 5 Easy Ways to Improve Thinking & Remembering!
By Thia Triggs of Print Path

 

Researchers have found evidence for the use of movement tools, but there are some children with whom these tools have the opposite effect.
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Geology Rocks!
By Kathie Yonemura of Tried and True Teaching Tools

Teaching Next Generation Science Standards is easy with the help of theater arts! Students explore the various aspects of earth science while reading, speaking, singing, and dancing about the concepts!
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Bring History To Life With Informational Texts
By Michelle Webb of Teaching Ideas For Those Who Love Teaching

Tips on how to use more informational texts with your students.

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Don’t foget to click on the linkies and read all the posts




December Teacher Talk

Posted by Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

It’s December and time for our holiday version of Teacher Talk. Getting ready for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza and New Years, we have some great ideas for you. So hurry on over to see what these creative educators are doing this month.


If you’re interested in joining this unique group of teacher entrepreneurs, blogging buddies and/or our blog linky, sign up here….The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative. If you decide to join, be sure to mention one of our names.

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A Celebration of Values

By Retta London of Rainbow City Learning

Reasons and ways to incorporate values into your lessons this holiday season.

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Election Musings in December

By Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

I came across this letter, written by a father to his children after the election. He said what is probably on many of our minds.

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Make Math FUN this Christmas!

Engage your students with these Christmas Math riddles worksheets! I began creating math riddles to make math more fun in my own classroom. I love hearing my students giggle as they solve the riddle at the end of the worksheet. Students solve problems, each problem has a letter assigned to it and the letters help to solve the riddle. It is a great way to combine fun and learning! Make math FUN!

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AAC From A to Z: A is for Aided Language Input

By Susan Berkowitz of Susan Berkowitz

If you are supporting an AAC user, you’ll want to watch this short video about using Aided Language Stimulation. This is the first step in implementing augmentative communication.

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Keeping Your Students Engaged After a Vacation Break

By Marcy Howe of It’s a Teacher Thing

Learn tips for re-engaging students after a vacation break.

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MAKING SENSE OF NUMBERS – BEYOND COUNTING

By Thia Triggs of Print Path

Many children enter kindergarten being able to rote count. What comes next? There are 5 key elements of number sense within a kindergarten age group. 

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Forging Connections By Studying Family

By Michelle Webb of Teaching Ideas for Those Who Love Teaching

Why Studying Family with young children is so important.

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My Top Five Christmas Read Alouds

By Lisa Robles of LisaTeachR’s Classroom

Here are my top five Christmas read alouds with some ideas fro activities.

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Four Quick Strategies to Check for Understanding

By Shametria Routt of the Routty Math Teacher

As teachers, we are constantly assessing our students and gathering formative assessment data to drive our instructional decisions. When we use student feedback and data to make decisions, we cut-down on the time spent teaching concepts and skills our students already know or aren’t quite ready for yet. Check out four quick strategies you can use today to check for your students’ understanding.

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3 Sure-Fire Ways to Keep Kids Moving for Math

By Kathie Yonemura of Tried and True Teaching Tools

Keep students on task and engaged! 3 math resources that get students up & moving, while practicing math skills.

An Existential Tug-of-War: Making Thinking Visible with Tuck Everlasting

By Tracy Willis of Wild Child Designs

This post explores critical thinking routines using Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. It shows the diversity of thinking that can occur in one novel study with upper elementary students. 

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Please hop on over to read these December blog posts.


No-prep printables – Reading and Writing for Christmas!

2x Xmas Preview - Copy

Happy (almost) holidays, my friends. Have you noticed an excitement in the air? My students definitely have the Christmas Spirit, and are always thrilled to have some fun seasonal activities do to recognize it!

I run Early Literacy Intervention groups with students from grades 1-3. While we do guided reading and writing, and play skill-building games, once in a while I do like to have them do some worksheets that I can keep a copy of in their files. We are currently working through both of the packages shown in the picture above and they are enthusiastic with the variety of activities at their ‘just-right’ level, too.

Here is a close up of the North Pole Reading and Writing Fun preview:

North Pole Preview

…and one of the Nativity Reading and Writing Fun preview:

demoNativityReadingandWritingActivities

The kids are having a lot of fun with these, thanks to the wonderful clip art by Edu-clips.com. They can’t wait to color the pictures!

Each of these packages come with the following tip sheet:

Instructions

Best wishes to all of you and yours as we wrap up for the holidays. Take care of you, too!

2015 TpT Store Prof pic circle

http://thatfunreadingteacher.com/

ThatFunReadingTeacher@gmail.com

Click the symbol above to access my TpT Store! 😉

 

Th1 Xmas bundle Th1 BigXmas

Th1 Nat R&W cover - Copy Th1 North Pole R & W JPG file

Follow That Fun Reading Teacher’s board Christmas Literacy Fun! on Pinterest.


Christmas Mosaic Craftivity

 

 

Do you need a cute Christmas holiday activity for your kids?  Check out this mosaic art project!  Students tear small pieces of construction paper apart and them down to the holiday picture.  When they are finished, the project looks like a mosaic.

You can find these mosaics here!

Here is an example from one of my 5th graders!  There are a total of 14 different pictures to choose from.

These lights would be cute strung along in the hallway to actually look like Christmas lights.