Our Mischief Elf

Our classroom elf, Candy Cane, has found himself in some pretty interesting places so far this week.....


He was first found hanging on one of our table name signs. He was swinging back and forth all day long!

His second place was on top of our Beach Behavior board, he was keeping an eye on the fish and hoping that noone would have to move theirs that day. He does not like to have to tell Santa about anyone moving their fish.



Candy Cane's third place was at the top of our cabinets. He was hanging on the handle to the top cabinet and reading who in our class has made it to counting to 50 and to100! He was excited to see so many kids counting so high!



The fourth and final spot this week that Candy Cane was found was in the tree in our calendar area. We think he was trying really hard to hide himself behind the leaves, but we were too smart for him and found him right away! We think we saw the leaves rustling around throughout the day. We can't wait to see what he is up to next week!

Word Family Sort

One of our accuracy lessons today focused on reviewing the four word families we have studied for the past several weeks. Each student pulled a word out of the bag and brought it up to the board. He/she read the word to the class and placed it under the correct word family it belongs. We finished the lesson by reading through each word and talked about which words rhymed with one another.

Penguin Patch Holiday Shop

Mayflower is in its second year of having the Penguin Patch Shop at school. This shop allows for students to bring money in from home and shop for presents for mom, dad, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa and anyone else that might be on their list! The students had a chance to look through all of the items last week and took envelopes home to have mom or dad help them fill out how much money they can spend on specific family members. Today was our chance to go shopping. We had our envelopes and were ready to shop! The class browsed through the various items on each table, paid for their items and even had each present wrapped to be put under the tree until Christmas Day. Each student was beyond excited to be buying presents for the people who mean the most to them. After all, 'tis the season of giving and not receiving! =)

Word Family Table Names

This week I changed our table names from sight words to three different word families we have been studying during "A" for accuracy in Daily 5. We talked about which table names rhymed with one another and have broken the words up into onset and rhyme, as well as saying each individual sound and blending them together for extra practice when lining up or getting drinks.

Writing with Action Words

Today during our writing time, we discussed action words. We started with talking about what the class was doing at that moment, they were "sitting". We then brainstormed other action words and wrote them on our board. After we thought of several words that describe an action, we completed a sentence about a gingerbread man. Students were told to fill in the missing blanks with two of our sight words "my" and "is". In the third blank, they wrote an action word describing what their gingerbread man would be doing in their story. Several students chose running with others choosing swimming, hopping, skipping, galloping, walking and one gingerbread man was even sleeping!

We Will Miss You!

Today we said goodbye to our two Purdue students we have had in our classroom since the beginning of September. Miss Lambert and Mrs. Spurlock came to our classroom every Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:00-10:50. They helped us during our writing time and during Daily 5. We were very happy to have them here to help us and are sad to see them leave. We wished them luck in the rest of school and are excited for them to be teachers one day!






 

Elf on the Shelf

We had a surprise visitor come to our class this morning. When I got to school I saw this book and found an elf hanging out in our classroom. We read the book together as a class and named our special elf friend Candy Cane. Candy Cane is one of Santa's elves and is in charge of watching us everyday at school. He is writing down notes as to who is making good and poor choices in our class. At night, he flies back to the North Pole and reports what he sees to Santa. He makes sure to come back to our classroom before the school day starts and it is our job to find where he is every morning. Apparently, he is going to be in different spots each morning and he might cause some trouble every so often too =). He did tell us one very important rule, we are NOT allowed to touch him. If we do, he will lose all of his magic and will not be able to report all of the wonderful ways we are treating our friends nicely and doing the right things everyday. We are very excited that he is here in our classroom and that Santa will be able to hear first hand how we are behaving in class!