Planning for December!

Hello friends!  It is so hard to believe that it is November 28th and that December is 3 days away!  Where has this year gone?  I do hope you and your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday and are ready for my favorite time of year - Christmas!!  There is something magical about Christmas and I think I feel it more since I work with 7/8 year olds every day.  Seeing their excitement about Santa, gifts, goodies, our Elf on the Shelf, and more, makes Christmas that much more magical.  Since I don't yet have children of my own, I get to sort of experience Christmas through them - which makes it much more fun!

Now that Black Friday is out of the way, and you may (or may not) have started (and maybe finished) or Christmas shopping, it's time to think about what you are going to do with your kiddos for the next month.  We have 14.5 school days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, and I know I've got to keep them engaged and learning so that I don't go crazy (well, that might happen anyways!) So, I've loaded up my planning and copies box with all sorts of Christmas activities for language arts, writing, math, and even our Grinch Week the last week of school. Check out some of the resources I made for my classroom for December below: (click any picture to go to see all of my Christmas products in my TPT store)

Christmas with your Favorite Cats - companion activities to go along with Christmas books about Bad Kitty, Pete the Cat, and Splat the Cat

Judy Moody & Stink - The Holly Joliday - book study and craft for a short chapter book all about Christmas wishes and show

Christmas Jammies Fun - 5 ELA and 5 Math Centers

Topics Covered:

ELA - type of sentence/punctuation, noun sort, ABC order, possessive nouns, and facts/opinions

Math - double-digit addition/subtraction with and w/o regrouping, making numbers, word problems, spin tally and graph, and geometry/shapes

Rockin' Reindeer - 12 Math Centers

Topics Covered:

true/false equations, 3-digit numbers place value, double digit addition and subtraction, hundreds board hidden picture, skip counting, word problems, money, measurement, quantity discrimination, and fractions

Our Classroom has an Elf - perfect if you do Elf on a Shelf in your classroom!  Daily morning work pages/journal along with other Christmas activities and elf craftivity

Elf Writing Craftivity - this craft is included in the Our Classroom Has an Elf set - so don't buy both!! Check out my class' elves in action on our bulletin board.  We made our elves this past week when we had a couple short days.  That way, when we come back after Thanksgiving - we are ready for Christmas!

I'm sure that we are like many other schools that integrate The Polar Express or How the Grinch Stole Christmas into some of their holiday celebrations.  We celebrate Grinch Week Monday - Thursday of our last week of school with our Grinch Day being our culminating activity on Thursday of that week.  We will watch the movie, have a "Who feast" snack, hold our holiday book exchange and more!

Both products above included TONS of ELA and Math activities that can be used in a center as well as some other goodies to keep your kids occupied and learning during the final days leading up to your Christmas vacation.

Now friends, I'm sure many of you are like me and love a sale!  Were you a before the crack of dawn Black Friday, or even shopping with a turkey leg in one hand on Thursday looking for a deal?

Did you know that TPT is having a sale too!  Monday and Tuesday my entire store will be 20% off.  But WAIT, THERE'S MORE (cue commercial voice)!!  TPT will be offering an additional percentage off with the promo code: SMILE, so you can get a total of 28% off!

Happy shopping and Merry Christmas!

12 Books of Christmas Giveaway

Hey y'all (yes, I'm from the south!) I'm Allyson from Going Strong in 2nd Grade and I teach at a public charter school in North Carolina.  I've been teaching 2nd grade for 5 years and blogging for a couple years now.  I'm excited to be teaming up with 11 other AMAZING bloggers to share some of our favorite Christmas and holiday books in a fun 12 Books of Christmas Blog Hop!

Along with FREEBIES for each book, we are also giving away a copy of each book. Make sure you read all the way to the end of this post to find out how to WIN!

One of my favorite book characters is Splat the Cat.  Splat is always getting into trouble of some sort and has a mouse as his best friend - my kids find this strange.  So my book is Merry Christmas, Splat by Rob Scotton.
In this book, Splat begins writing his letter to Santa to tell him how good he has been during the past year, only for his sister to remind him that he hasn't been all that good.  So, what would any cat (or child) do in the days leading up to Christmas - try to be super helpful of course!  But, if you know Splat, his help isn't all that much help.  Come Christmas Eve, Splat is a furry ball full of worry that Santa won't visit his house that he stays up all night to watch for Santa.  But we all know Santa always sneaks in and out without being seen.  Christmas morning is quite a surprise for a tired Splat, and like always, the story ends on a happy note that'll keep your kids smiling.
So, I've got a little freebie to share with you that goes along with Merry Christmas Splat.  A couple weeks ago, we did an activity with cause & effect and my kids looked like deer in headlights, so we've been tying cause & effect into our lessons since then and they are really starting to become cause & effect experts.  This freebie is a cause & effect chart that will have your students identifying causes or effects for different events that happened in the book.

This activity is a part of a larger set all about some of our favorite cat book characters at Christmas.  The freebie above (only found here on my blog) is included in my "Christmas With Your Favorite Cats" set.  This product can be found in my TPT store!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Before you hop onto see my sweet friend, Tori over at Tori's Teacher Tips, don't forget to grab my number! Each blogger will have a number at the end of his/her post. Collect all the numbers along the way, and when you're done, add them all up and enter the total number in the Rafflecopter below!

Click on the image above to hop over to Tori's blog!
a Rafflecopter giveaway