Santa's Workshop!

Today the first graders were given an opportunity to create two cute crafts to give their families for Christmas!  Thank you to our wonderful PTO at Hamilton Elementary School for providing the crafts for each student with no cost to families!   Thank you also to the many volunteers who helped the kids make their crafts and bundle them up to take home today.  We were in and out of the gym in 30 minutes because of the wonderful helpers!  Enjoy the photos and look for an update to our blog after our Christmas party on Friday as well.

***SPOILER ALERT!!!***  If you are waiting until Christmas to open your child's gifts, please do not scroll down and save viewing this post until after Christmas!  Completed crafts in photos at the bottom!  :)

Brayden

This is Brayden!  He is our student of the week this week.  His favorite color is ORANGE.  Brayden would love to visit Disney World someday.  His favorite television program is Dog with a Blog.  When Brayden grows up, he would like to be a mechanic. Brayden's favorite book is Curious George and the Chocolate Factory.  His favorite sport is football and he loves to eat macaroni and cheese!  Brayden is special because he cares about his family, but the VERY BEST thing about Brayden is the fact that he is NICE!

Christmas Crafts!

We took some time this week to make our holiday decorations for the classroom. The kids LOVE to make them, and doing so really helps with their fine motor skills, recreating from a sample and gives them time to socialize with their classmates!  Our room and the hallway look GREAT!  It's just a little bit sad knowing that they will only be enjoyed at school for a couple of weeks. The good news is that you will be able to enjoy them at home over the holidays, as they will come home on our last day of school in December!


We made three different ornaments for our Christmas tree.  We traced around our hand to make a Santa head (turned upside down). We added a face, colored the hat, and added cotton balls to make it look neat!  Our second ornament was a math related ornament. We used pattern blocks to decorate it.  Green triangles are worth 1, blue diamonds are worth 2 (because 2 triangles fit inside a blue diamond) and red trapezoids are worth 3 (because 2 triangles fit inside a red trapezoid).  Once the ornament was decorated, the kids had to write the matching math problem on the back.  Our final ornament was an angel ornament with their own Christmas decorations drawn on it.

Sad little Christmas tree!  It needs
ornaments made by kids!

If you look behind Ashlynn, you will see our finished
Christmas tree!  

On another day, we made angels for the hallway! This project takes a good hour for them to watch how to put it together and make their own. The end results turned out wonderful and everyone who walks down our hallway will enjoy looking at them!

Ryleigh and Jaden work on the floor to spread out.

Aiden and Bridger work on their angels at their desks.

Aubanie, Chloe, Taylor, Bailey and Do'olo like working (and socializing)
on the floor in the classroom.

Clayton, William, Reece and Tristan work at their desks.

Jacob an Owen D. work at their desks as well.

Brayden and Owen L. work at their desks. (Ryleigh is getting her glue bottle)

Beautiful job Ryleigh!

Ashlynn's beautiful angel!

Hanging in the hallway for others to enjoy.

Another beautiful angel on display.

We read several (as in 8-9!) different versions of The Gingerbread Man this week.  We compared (discussed how they were similar) and contrasted (discussed how they were different) each book. We also read The Gingerbread Girl, The Gingerbread Bear, and The Gingerbread Pirate!  Who knew there were so many versions out there?  Me, of course!  Anyway, after reading all those stories, we wondered where the Gingerbread Man was running and where he may have ended up had he not been eaten by the clever fox!  We made a very creative list of places the Gingerbread Man could have run to, and wrote about it. Then we decorated and cut out a Gingerbread Man cover, and they went up on a bulletin board in the classroom.

The cover is stapled to the writing at the top so that we can
lift it up to read the writing.

The completed bulletin board.

Finally, we created Santa Claus heads to display in the room. The neat part about this craft is the beard. The kids were taught how to make a curly string of paper by starting with a circle and cutting in a circular motion around and around until you get to the center.  They learned that the thinner you cut, the longer the curly piece would get.  This took patience and persistence, and some enjoyed it, but others were frustrated and only did a couple of pieces.

Owen D., Ashlynn and Taylor.

 

Jaden, Do'olo, Brayden, Elijah, Ryleigh and Owen L.

Isaac, Bailey, Bridger, Aubanie, Aiden, Brenden and Chloe.

Clayton, William, Reece and Tristan.

Notice the many curls made for this Santa!

One of our bulletin boards in the classroom.

Our other bulletin board in the classroom.

It was a fun week! We have one more item to make and hang from our ceiling. We will make a paper wreath, which will complete our Christmas craft adventure.  Our room looks very festive and the kids love to see their work decorating our little world. Stop in and see our hard work if you are able!

Ashlynn

This is Ashlynn!  She is our student of the week!  Her favorite color is HOT PINK!  She would love to visit Disney World someday.  Ashlynn's favorite television program is Good Luck Charlie.  When she grows up, Ashlynn would like to be a designer.  She has a dog named Nala.  Ashlynn's favorite book is  The Little Mermaid.  Her favorite sport is soccer. Ashlynn loves to eat Macaroni and Cheese.  She is special because she is nice to others, but the VERY BEST thing about Ashlynn is the fact that she loves her family!

Owen

This is Owen.  His favorite color is GREEN.  He would love to visit the headquarters of Marvel Comics someday!  His favorite television show is Avengers.  When Owen grows up, he would like to be a fireman. He has a lot of pets: a dog named Bandit, two geckos and 7 dwarf goats!  Owen's favorite books are the Captain Underpants series.  His favorite sport is softball. Owen loves to eat macaroni and cheese. Owen is special because he was born on a Marine Corps base (Camp Pendelton). The VERY BEST thing about Owen is that he can run FAST!

PTO Pizza Party!

We celebrated on Tuesday!  If you remember, our class earned the most money of all the classrooms in the entire school for the Hawkeye Hustle fund raiser!  One of our rewards was $100 to spend in our classroom.  So far, we have added two more bean bag chairs to use during our Daily 5 time each day.  We still have plenty of money left, so we will have even more added to our classroom soon!

Our other reward was a pizza party from our PTO!  Mrs. Kleinheksel brought in Little Caesar's Pizza and root beer and orange pop for us, plus we each had a small container of Pringles chips as well.  The kids were also excited because of our two guests - Mr. Ferrell and Adam!

We would like to thank our wonderful Hamilton Elementary PTO for the money and the pizza party!  We had a wonderful lunch and are very proud that we helped earn the money for Hamilton Elementary School!  Enjoy the pictures everyone!

Chloe, Adam, Bridger and Brayden

Aubanie, Aiden and Owen L.

Bailey, Taylor and Ashlynn

Do'olo, William, Reece

Ryleigh, Owen D., Mr. Ferrell, Do'olo

Jaden, Tristan, Ryleigh

Jacob, Clayton, Isaac

We ate in a huge circle to eat our lunch.

It's fun to sit in the classroom for lunch!

Pizza... yum, yum, yum!

Bridger taught Adam how to make a duck mouth with his Pringles!

Reece decided to give the duck mouth a try!

We ALL made duck mouths!!! 

The entire group after our pizza lunch.
Miss Brandy even joined us at the end of our lunch.

What fun would our blog be without the funny picture at the end???
Not nearly as much fun!