Friday Freebie: Behavior Think Sheet

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and you're enjoying your winter break!

One skill that's super tough for kids (and even some grown ups...) is recognizing and dealing with their emotions. I have a space in my classroom where students can go if they need time to calm down, process, and reflect on their behavior. Typically, students will place themselves in my Take a Break spot, but sometimes I might ask students to take a few minutes to collect themselves. While a student is in this spot in my classroom, they complete one of these Think Sheets:

After the student is calm, focused, and ready to learn, the student can rejoin the class. Then I will wait until a break in class (usually recess time) to reflect again with the student about what happened.

There is a boy and a girl version in both color and black and white. Click on any of the images above to download a copy.

1

Friday Freebie: Thank-You Notes

WE MADE IT!!!

I don't know how, but we did. I think this photo sums it all up...

We actually didn't have school today due to icy road conditions. Of all the days to have a "Snow Day;" I have 8 pounds of frosting in my fridge and a table full of graham crackers and candy, waiting to be turned into gingerbread houses. Not sure what I'm going to do... Gingerbread houses in January?

Anyway, every year I am so amazed by the gifts my students give me for Christmas. I always tell them that the best gift they can give me is their hard work, listening ears, and kindness they show to their classmates. But that doesn't stop many of them from getting me a little something. Look what I got last week:

OMG! The BEST PRESENT (for me) EVER!!!

Of course I write thank-you notes to the bunnies who give me presents, but I always have a hard time finding cards that I like. Everything that is Christmas/winter themed is usually geared more towards adults. Always in cursive and not cute at all. And the "cute" ones, in my opinion, are a little on the tacky side. So this year I decided to make my own thank-you notes! The first two pages would be folding cards; the last page would be if you wanted to do post card notes.

Click any of the images to download a copy.

I write my thank-you notes over Winter Break and then mail them to the kids. That way I know they make it home :) And what kid doesn't love getting mail?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Enjoy your winter break!!

3

Friday Freebie: Letters to Santa

This month we've been focusing on letter writing. We are doing our own version of the Flat Stanley Project to practice letter writing and to support our geography unit in Social Studies.

We sing a song to help us remember the parts of a letter. I stole this song from my teammate, who I think found it somewhere on the Internet:

(sung to the tune of the Addams Family)

There are five parts to a letter

They're easy to remember:

Heading, Greeting, Body

Closing, Signature!

Parts of a letter!

(clap clap)

Parts of a letter!

(clap clap)

Parts of a letter,

Parts of a letter,

Parts of a letter!

(clap clap)

There are also hand motions we do with the song :)

Next week, to continue our letter writing extravaganza, here is a template to write a letter to Santa. "Santa?! I KNOW HIM!!!" I am super excited to be able to use some of the loot I picked up at the TPT Cyber Monday & Tuesday sale as well! Anyway, the template comes in color and black and white. Click on any image to download.

Enjoy!

0

CURRENTLY: December

It's my blog, and I'll post twice in one day if I want to... :)

Wowsers! I can't believe it's December already!! What's freaking me out even more is that there are only 3 weeks until Winter Break! So much to do at school, so little time... We were pretty wired up for Thanksgiving, so I'm a little nervous about the Big Guy coming to town in 24 days. I may have to break down and get an Elf on the Shelf for my classroom.

Anyhoo... here's my Currently. Thanks to Farley for hosting every month :)

Listening: No Packers today (and no, I don't want to talk about the embarrassing game on Thanksgiving...), so the hubs is watching other teams today. I just found out it's the Bears vs. the Vikings. Do I have to cheer for a team? Can't I just cheer for the apocalypse?

Loving: I've been a little non-existent on the blog, but you can find me most days on Instagram. I LOVE all the support and encouraging words from my IG buddies! If you're on Instagram, you might want to follow me. Lots of people (including me) have been advertising flash freebies on IG only. Check it out!

Thinking: Who's pumped for the TPT sale tomorrow?? I just checked. I have 15 items in my cart, with about another 40 on my wish list. Oopsies...

Wanting: One more day off. Please? We had school Monday-Wednesday last week, so needless to say, I am a bit jealous of those of you who had the entire week off. 3 more weeks until Winter Break!!

Needing: To finish my report cards. They will go out to parents on Thursday. I am close to having all the grades put in, and then I get to do the comments. Oh joy... I know I write too much with comments, and I just can't bring myself to do canned comments. Yes I know I do this to myself. But as a parent, I want specific comments, so that's why I spend so much time on my students.

Christmas Tradition: We are usually all over the place from December 21-December 25th. Both sides of our family have extensive traditions that we must be a part of. But I staked my claim on Christmas morning for my own little family. We are home Christmas Eve night. My kids wake up in their own house and race downstairs to see what Santa brings! I make a special breakfast (usually baked french toast of some kind), and we hang out just the 4 of us. My kids are up at 6:00AM, so we can usually get to my parents' house by 10:00, which works out because my brother is usually still sleeping anyway!

OK, that's enough procrastination. Back to the report cards...

5

Sunday Morning Mussings

Hi everyone! Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to check in to share a few random nuggets :)

Remember that Mighty Math blog giveaway?

Your sweet comments really made my heart sing! The giveaway ended on Thanksgiving, so you're probably wondering who the winners are...

Drum roll please.....

Congrats to....

Chelsea and Samantha!!!!!!

I emailed you ladies last night :)

I also want to say thanks to all of you who read and follow my blog. I feel like I've let you down these past few months, but I promise that I will get back into the swing of things in December. Because not everyone could win the Mighty Math pack, I made this little ditty to share:

Click on it! IT'S FREE!!

We were learning about contractions last week, and the kiddos LOVE Scoot! It has a snowman theme because there's a really awesome Contractions video on Brain Pop Jr. Do you or your school have a subscription to Brain Pop Jr.? My kiddos LOVE Annie and Moby!!!

Soooo.... maybe you've heard that there's a little sale going on tomorrow and Tuesday at TPT? Well guess who has two thumbs and is participating? THIS GIRL!

Is your cart ready??? My cart overflow-eth. Shhh... don't tell the hubs :)

1