Another day... and some sweet little elves

We are heartbroken. We are speechless. We too are mourning. For those sweet little lives that were taken a lifetime too soon. We mourn for their families, and friends, and anyone who was touched by this awful tragedy. We hugged our own kids tighter, and felt blessed for what we have, and who we have to go home to at the end of the day. We keep in our thoughts Sandy Hook, and educators everywhere who will now have to have some tough conversations, and answer some tough questions. We know we are. But, today is now another day. And although we are still heartbroken, and still speechless, and still mourning, we have vowed to do everything in our power to move ahead for our own sweet first graders. And we thank God for who we have to go to school for in the morning. Bless those little babies who are watching over us now. xoxo

This week we are wrapping up our Christmas season at school. We had meant to share this with you this weekend, but...  So, better late than never. Hopefully you still have some time to use these fun activities, or just save them for next year.  We started with Rudolph this year, and make sure to check out our freebies from {LAST YEARS POST}. The Rudolph art project is one of our favs!

 

 For the kids Christmas gifts for their parents, we made these sweet snowman ornaments.

We paint the kids hands (using white acrylic paint with a tiny bit of glue mixed in really helps it stick to the ornament) and then have them grasp the ornament. Their fingers are then turned into snowmen, using wither sharpies or puff paint. We spray on clear adhesive (glitter looks amazing!), add a ribbon with a little poem tag, and they're done! We also attach the kids sticker picture to the back. Here is the sweet little poem:

These aren’t just 5 snowmen,

As anyone can see.

I made them with my hand

Which is a part of me.

Now each year when you trim the tree

You’ll look back and recall,

Christmas of 2012

When my hand was just this small!

  

Click {here} if you'd like a copy of the ornament tags to print out. 

And we are rounding out the week with our adorable elf activities. We started out by reading this sweet little story, The Littlest Elf. 

We then filled out these sweet little elf applications that we found at What The Teacher Wants. We had to reformat to make it all fit on one page. If you'd like a copy, you can find it {here}.

The next step is to make these FANTASTIC little elves we created. Are they just to die for?



If you'd like a copy of the master, find it {here}. We will use the hole punches to cut out the little circles, and they will draw their own circle for the hat. The leg stripes were colored in marker. Everything else is there. We will then put it all together, and just add a picture of the kids in the elf hat.



Here is my own little elf model for the picture of the elf hat. Please ignore the teeth! He's lost 4 recently, and is looking kinda silly. :-) 
 
 

If you still are looking for some math and literacy activities for winter time, make sure to check out these two units!  Click on the pictures to see them at our store.We hope you have a wonderful last week with the first graders. Hug them all tight!