Reindeer and Santa Cake Pops

Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Almost Christmas!!  Tomorrow is officially my "drama Queen's" last full day of public school.  To celebrate I contacted the teacher and asked if we could have a going away party for her so she could have closure and say goodbye to her and all her friends.  To make it a fun day I decided to make cake pops.  To be completely honest I have a love, hate relationships with these tiny beautifully deceptive little treats!  I love them when they are done, and I do have fun creating the first 2 or 3 of them but about a quarter of the way into it I am saying to myself WHAT WAS I THINKING????  Anyways that was then and now they are done so I am back to the I love them stage!  I decided to take step by step photos for you all because they are not easy to make. 

First you take your sticks and dip them in Chocolate and then stick them in your cake balls.  Then freeze them to harden.

Take Chinese noodles and melted Chocolate or Royal Frosting and make antlers.  Leave out to harden.

Melt chocolate and pipe pupils on white Chocolate chips to make eyes.

Melt Chocolate and add a tablespoon of water so the Chocolate doesn't melt.

Dip the cake ball in the Chocolate and twirl until all the extra chocolate has dripped off. 

Finally decorate and remember, have fun because you will love them when you are done!!

Grinch Activities

"He's a mean one Mr. Grinch!" Why do you think he is so mean??  What makes you feel like a Grinch??  What would make you feel nicer??  This is how our journal discussion started yesterday morning.  We then continued the day with our Grinch Feltman.  Every child started out with a heart that was "2 sizes too small".  Whenever they were "caught" being Kind to another student I gave them a bigger felt heart to go put on the Grinch Feltman.  At the end of the day we measured and graphed the hearts on the Grinch.  The kids really focused on being kind to others and made the connection of what happens to your heart when others are mean to you.  I have never took such a deep meaning from the grinch before but I think it is a great lesson on Character Education and bullying.  We also worked on our 'Gr" beginning sounds and made grinch patterns for math.  For science we talked about the properties of liquid and solid and we made green ice cream for "Grinning, Grinch, Green day" on Friday. 

Grinch "Feltman"

"Grinning Grinches"

Grinch Preview

Right now we are working on our grinch unit.  Today we talked about how to make the grinch grin.  When we did that we watched his heart grow and grow.  We made Deanna Jump's Grinch faces for art.  We worked on Dr. Seuss rhyming words.  For math we used Dr. Seuss erasers to make AB and AABB patterns. 
Tomorrow we are going to make ice cream for science and we will talk about the GR blend and come up with "Grinch Grins" (words that start with GR).  We will also discuss feelings and how important they are.  I love it when young kids get a chance to really open up and discuss thier feelings.  It is so touching to see what is in their precious little hearts.  It is a wonderful reminder of who these little people are.  We will write our feelings on hearts.  We will have the Grinch posted in the classroom and whenever someone is "caught" being kind they will get to put a bigger heart on the grinch.  Whoever has the biggest heart at the end of the day gets a prize, (but they don't know that until the end.) 
On Friday we will have "Green, Grinch day!"  Everyone will come dressed in green, will get green candy canes and green grinch shakes that we will make with our homemade ice cream.  I will post more pictures all week long so stay tuned!! 
 I have started creating a freebie for you all coming soon and I wanted to post a preview of if.  When we reach 100 followers on facebook I will post the freebie.  http://www.facebook.com/KidzoneTeachermamaThis is my very first product so I am a little excited! 

Gingerbread man math and literacy unit

This week we use these gingerbread units http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Gingerbread-Man-Math-and-Literacy-Fun
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Gingerbread-Glyph

We will finish up next week.  The kids had fun with the science project where we discussed what would happen if the gingerbread man swam across the ocean.  They all made thier predictions and then observed what happened.  Some kids even wanted to eat the soggy gingerbread man EWWW!!!

For math we worked on graphing and number operations.  We played the dice roll game where they got to eat whatever number they landed on.  This game was a big hit!!  They were all excited to see what part of the gingerbread man they got to eat next.  This was also good reading practice because they had to read the chart everytime. 
For Graphing we ate a part of the gingerbread and the graphed which part we ate first then we analyzed our data and recorded it.  We also measured our gingerbread men and recored the data.

In journal we did a directed drawing activity where they had to follow directions to draw each part of the gingerbread man.  We talked about what the house would look like if the gingerbread man was running away from it and they decided it would be smaller.  Then they wrote about the gingerbread boy. 
We made gingerbread playdough for our practical life shelf.  The kids will get to roll and cut the gingerbread man and decorate him with buttons and other plastic candies. 

We made gingerbread glyphs for the parents to guess which gingerbread man is which???  They had a lot of fun with this activity because they got to personalize it and learn more about their classmates. 

We practiced descriptive language and adjectives after we read the story and used adjectives to describe how the gingerbread man tasted and how he acted. 

Last but certainly not least we decorated and ate gingerbread boys.....and girls! ;) I was impressed with their creativity.  This was an extremely fun and educational unit that we will use over and over again that I will keep adding to.