A little of what we have been up to!

Sorry for the delay in posting.  It has been a crazy few weeks!  We have been busy learning about Wants & Needs, Christmas in America and Christmas Around the World.  I have been busy testing, testing & more testing.  Anyone else feel like that's all you do?  I totally get pre/post testing to drive instruction...but it is consuming me.  Our latest pretest on Addition almost sent me over the edge.  Also progress monitoring - anyone else do this all the time?  I have 15 reds people..that I have to test every 10 days.  I swear once I get them done its time to start over.  I can't wait for benchmarking at the end of January so my babies can get out of the red since most of them shouldn't be there anyway.  Ok rant over - here are some pics to show you what we have been up to :)

Making links for our Christmas Countdown - you can grab that here!  I used the Santa because he was adorable :)

Making Santa!  This is my favorite Santa craftivity! :)

Our Japanese fans.  The kids got to use glue which was beyond exciting and then I put whatever color glitter they wanted on their fans.  The floor was super sparkly!

I didn't remember to take pictures of everything (remember all that testing?!)  We also made poinsettias, bead wreath ornaments, and bead candy cane ornaments this past week :) (All of these can be found here!)  We used these projects to write as well.  The students wrote: In Mexico, they _____.  or whatever country we were studying.  Perfectly aligns with common core for research!

Only 3 1/2 days stand between us and a relaxing Christmas Break!  We are going to enjoy the Polar Express this week, a Christmas Party, Open our Christmas presents and finish up our Christmas Around the World unit.  I am super excited about our party on Tuesday - we are going to be decorating Gingerbread Houses in groups!  I can't wait to see how they turn out and promise to post pictures quickly! Wednesday we are doing rotations and in my room we are making bell necklaces for the Polar Express.  I love this time of year with my babies.

I am sure at this point you have heard about the horrible shootings in CT.  I want to take a second to say that  selfishly as a teacher, I can not imagine this horrible tragedy happening to my students.  I love my kids so much and this is my favorite time of year with them.  They have been ecstatic making all of our crafts these past few weeks and I can not imagine missing that time with them.  Reading about the heroic teachers absolutely amazes me and I know that if put in the same situation I would protect my 20 sweet kinders as my own.  I am thankful that 20 sets of parents allow me to spend 7.5 hours with their children every day because I learn as much from them as they do from me.  I am praying for the families that have lost someone and for the families of the other children that they can go to school and not be scared of what can happen.  Teachers Pay Teachers is giving 10% of their profit today to Sandy Hook Elementary so if you need some last minute Christmas items, please stop by my store or any other.  Have a great rest of your weekend!

From Erica Bohrer's 1st Grade