December in a Blog Post

We've finally made it through a good part of the year and into my favorite month, December! December is a magical month in Kindergarten!  It's full of crafts and fun! The good thing is, we get to integrate the crafts into learning about the different countries around the world! I didn't get a lot of pictures of the crafts because it was such a busy time and I was struggling through my last bit of school and had so much on my mind, but I still got tons of pics of everything else!

We started off December with a visit from the North Pole! The students were super excited that our elf came in a freezing package straight from Santa! They named her Twinkles! Twinkles was a great motivator and was always up to something :)

One of the crafts I remembered to capture was the St. Lucia head wreaths and star boy hats! 

Is it just me or do you feel like your always trying to figure out the perfect parent present for Christmas? When I was getting my ornaments out this year, I realized how much I truly enjoy looking at the ones my children have made for me.  Mrs. Bradley saw a pin for a reindeer picture frame, but the frames were really pricey.  We collaborated on what materials to use and I was able to get the foam and ribbon for a very reasonable price at Michaels.  I had our awesome EC teacher tie the ribbons for me because I'm not a very good bow tier!  I hot glued those on and the ribbon on the back.  The kids glued on the eyes and nose with white glue.  They also glued their hand prints on which Mrs. Bradley had previously gotten.  We took their picture next to the tree wrapped up in lights and put it in their frames.  They were too cute!  

Have you read about how I do the 12 days of Christmas? I blogged about it over at The Primary Pack.  This was the day we opened our presents! We sit in a circle and open them...its controlled chaos and oh so much fun!

Mrs. Bradley and I got the students a coloring book and crayons.  I always like to get that for my students because it's something fun they can do over the break too! 

For our party, we made Gingerbread houses!  Thank goodness for wonderful families, they supplied all the materials needed.  We started with ice cream cones and green icing and let them use M&Ms to decorate those and then let them eat those.  This kind of gets them out of the mode of wanting to eat everything...then they can decorate the houses!  We had a great parent volunteer turn out and all of the houses looked amazing!  Such a fun party!

For Christmas Rotations, the students played Bingo, Musical Chairs, made bookmarks, fingerprint snowmen, and reindeer food.  They had a blast as always!

We ended December with the Polar Express! I missed this day due to graduation, but I couldn't miss seeing my sweet Kinders in their jammies, so I popped in to take their picture and see them in their jammies and Mrs. Bradley captured some pictures of them drinking hot chocolate and having popcorn.  I'm sad I missed it, but it looks like they had a blast!

Better late than never, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! I am so thankful to all the wonderful families in my classroom and all of you that take the time to follow my blog!

We had an amazing first half of the year! I can't wait to see what 2015 holds for us!  Thanks for catching up with me!  I promise to post more regularly for the rest of the year! :)