little tree

i admit, i like not using capital letters and inconsistent punctuation

today we read e.e.cunnings little tree poem

i told them his style was all lower case      extra spaces

and zilch when it comes to punctuating

and they could imitate his style today too! {insert eruption of unnecessary hoots and hollers here}

i had never seen little tree in book form before, but my teammie has it-though with her maiden name so i  am not sure is mass published anymore, though it is on amazon

but she created an awesome file to celebrate the sweet tenderness of little tree for us! {sorry for the streaky pics-who knows!}

first they brainstormed nouns, verbs, and adjectives about their chosen holiday object
then they used a template to write their poem
then i printed the file’s template onto holiday paper-you'd’ve {like that word} thought it was gold they way they reacted to pretty paper

i love these two
the first one is so sweet
i love the line “hug you safe and tight as your sister would” the rest of us put mom here, even me!
the second one is just fun. i love that he completely forwent the capitals and compares the little boy to a bunny-he’s a cool kid!

begin capitalizing here b/c Live Writer keeps correcting my I’s!

We also finished up the Grinch! Hallelujah!
After we moved our stickies around from yesterday, they had to transfer the info to a double bubble {I’ll share it tomorrow as a freebie on TpT-I saved it at school} and it will not have mysterious boxes printed on it either!

Here’s a few good ones!

and just what have Elfie and Sally been up too-well trying to keep the kiddos from sharpening pencils all day is what!
and tomorrow the kids will arrive to a blizzard of Hershey Kisses and M&Ms all over their desks-and don’t for get the sweet sign they are holding that says Enjoy Our Droppings! hahahaha

weeee!

Grinch Day… take 2.5

By now, I can fully recite the Grinch…seriously. It happens every year, but this year I think it’s permanent.

We’ve have officially spent 2.5 days immersed in Whoville.

Friday was our annual Grinch readers’ theatre. I love it! The kiddos live it! The parents love it! The littles who come and watch love it! It’s great fun and an excuse to take 20 minutes daily for 2 weeks to practice! yay!

After FOUR performances, we then enjoyed a relaxing afternoon of recess active play and building of social interactions!!

I got the idea from my teammie who has done this readers’ theatre for the past 10 years! My middle lamb was her Grinch-boy is he perfect!

Then Monday was our official GRINCH day! I have tons of resources for this {and plenty pinned here}. It’s our third year doing Grinch Day after seeing Cara’s post a few years back. I love it! I even bought a new tee for the occasion. In case you didn’t know, Target men's section has the best, most softest tees ever! I even got another Seuss one with Cat and Thing 1 and Thing 2! too fun!

so here’s how Monday went

       
Grinch Cookies baked and decorated by the kiddos

   

    
Grinch punch made by yours truly

I found several recipes for this online, but ended up going with green kiwi strawberry Target brand soda, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and green sprinkles. I thought it looked great and most of them liked it! May have to repeat for St. Patty’s Day!

    
a simile and metaphor mini lesson with Mr. Grinch song-Loved it! I did this last year too. Here’s the Google Doc link to the freebie

and a fab vocab activity from my teammie’s store! {shhh, it’s Seuss, but don’t tell TpT}

and finally the beginnings of our Grinch ornaments {pinspired of course}

Source: smartbuygal.com via Rachel on Pinterest

 

again, pretty easy idea from Pinterest.

squirt some floor cleaner in the glass ball
roll around to cover every inch of it! then drip out into the cup to be sure to get the top too!
dump some fine green glitter in and repeat with the swirling
let the kids use a Sharpie and draw in the eyes and mouth-then use a yellow paint pen to color in the eyes

THEN day 2.5-today
We chose had to attend four different performances of the fourth grader's’ plays, so that took up a good hour and a half
we needed to get some wiggles out after that so recess it was.
But then we watched A Christmas Carol-while I was dozing off last night I was thinking how much the Grinch has in common with Scrooge. Only 3 students had seen or heard of the story, so it was the perfect tie in!
First I gave each student a sticky and told them to write anything they wanted about the Grinch {who still needs to be colored from last year!}

then after watching the video with a PE break we added stickies to Scrooge

I had to draw him up quick during their block time, so it seems I forgot to trace his right eye!

Tomorrow we will move any similar traits or qualities to the middle and do double bubbles. So I guess this will make 3 days of Grinch-ish-ness. Even though it is supposed to be Gingerbread day…we will see. Today was supposed to be Tree Day and since the copies are run already, tomorrow will probably be Tree Day!

Check out this ah.ma.zing e.e. cummings Little Tree file we’ll use!

I hope I am not the only one who is getting nothing she has planned completed!! And the fact that you all keep posting fun stuff to your blogs and TpT does not help!!!

I wanna do this

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Holly-Jolly-Reindeer-A-Character-Inference-Activity

and this http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dear-Santa-I-Can-Explain

and this one even though it’s basically the same http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dear-SantaI-Can-Explain-A-Persuasive-Writing-Activity

and don’t forget this http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-to-and-From-Santa

 

I’ll be posting all our Winter Holidays Around the World fun from last week tomorrow!! fingers crossed!
So happy 2 more days for us. Then getting my hair done {aka. 2 hours of no “Mrs. Lamb”, or “Mom”, or “honey”…} though I don’t so much mind the last one.