My Pet Reindeer

Hi Friends!

Are you counting down the days until winter break? Me too #about15togo

As much as I cannot wait for a solid two weeks at home, where getting dressed is purely optional, I really do love this time of year at school. It's like holidays 24/7 for all of December for teachers. I mean there's books upon books dedicated to the holidays and we get to decorate our homes and our rooms! Okay, that's not always the funnest for some of us :)

I'm here today with a sweet little creativity unit I whipped up just in time for winter. It's all about adopting a pet reindeer, so it's tons of fun for Christmas, but it's also a lot of fun if holidays are a no-no in your school, but you still want to sprinkle a little cheer in your room!

In this unit, students adopt a pet reindeer and write all about it! There are tons of different writing papers and prompts to appeal to students of all ages, but the funnest writing activity comes in the form of a pet manual. You have to love the activities where students don't even realize they're doing work because they're having so much fun.

And if they get to use their imagination? Well, I'm ALL OVER THAT!

We're just getting this little unit started in my pull-out groups. Because I only have them for small periods of time a few times a week. I have to really break up the lessons.

We started by adopting a class reindeer we named Bernie. We talked about all the ways we could describe the way Bernie looked on the outside. Then, we read "Olive, the Other Reindeer". We talked about what skills and characteristics Olive had that made her a good reindeer.

We went back to our chart and added personality traits. I also asked them to think about their pets at home. How would they describe their personalities? We added a few of those suggestions to our cart as well.

{{Sorry our chart is a little wrinkly. I had an overzealous volunteer grab it for me!}}

That's as far as we got last week. This week we will use our characteristic planning sheet to plan out our own reindeer's personality and appearance. We'll use them to make our reindeer and finally to fill out our pet manual.

Lastly, my students will receive adoption certificates and they will officially be reindeer parents!

Here's a closer look at most of the components of "My Pet Reindeer"

This unit includes tracers for the pet reindeer. I plan on only giving my students tracers for the reindeer heads and possibly antlers because they need help with scale, but I want each students' reindeer to look different and be reflective of the characteristics I gave them.

I will post pictures once we finish them! I'm so excited to see the final result!

You can grab this little unit from my TpT store by clicking the cover image below:

Happy Holidays :)

Roam the Room Christmas Freebie!!!

Hi Friends!

6 more days until a much needed Christmas Break for me, how about you?

I’m just popping in with a quick freebie for you tonight!

It’s a FREEBIE designed after my “Santa’s Little Helper” Hallway Hunt.  We’ll be using it all next week to review some common core concepts in a fun way before we head off on Christmas Break!



You can read more about “Santa’s Little Helpers” here.

For this freebie, your students roam the room (or the hallway, in my case)  completing a mission for Santa. To help him, they need decide what part of speech is written on the word cards. 



Directions, word cards, and a recording sheet are included in the freebie.







To grab it head over to my Facebook page and click the “Freebies for Fans” tab at the top of the page. 

You will need to “like” my page to access the freebie.  Once you do, it will link you to a folder with tonight's freebie, as well as previous Fan Freebies. Grab them all while you’re there :)

I hope this little activity helps you get through these last few days before break!

Goodnight :)

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas {{GIVEAWAY}}

It’s officially December and I am officially in the Christmas mindset.

Christmas candles are lit, Christmas lights are up, and our tree is completely ornamented.

{{Ornamented might be a made up word}}

I’m also in a pretty darn good mood because the TpT Cyber Monday (and Tuesday) SALE starts tomorrow!!!!

My cart is stocked. 

See, I like to shop on Monday, earn credits, then go back for more on Tuesday.

It’s my version of “extreme couponing”.

My lil’ store is so stockpiled with Christmas goodies you might think I don’t sell anything else.

But I do!

It’s just, I love Christmas so…

Here are my NEWEST Christmas items. Hot off the presses and posted today! Today, you guys!!!

My Winter-Holidays Comprehension sheets are up.  They’ve also been added to the BUNDLED version, so if you own that, make sure you redownload before the holidays!



There are 8 passages, and they cover such topics as…
*German Christmas Markets
*Santa’s Many Names
*Traditions
*Christmas in Australia
*Hanukkah
*Santa Claus
and, of course,
*Christmas!

I can’t wait to use them with my kiddos starting this week.  We have just really been getting into going back into the text to support our answers. These passages are beyond perfect for enforcing such an important skill.



I’m a million kids of excited about my newest Christmas addition…”Santa’s Little Helpers”



It’s an “Elf-Themed” Hallway Hunt/Read the Room Activity with 3 R/LA and 3 Math activities.  Common Core Aligned and Perfect for 1st and 2nd Grade!

To get your kiddos excited about the Hallway Hunt, I’ve provided some fun printables that they’ll need before they board Santa’s sleigh…

An “Official Letter”…


Boarding Passes…


ID Badges…

PS: They're not really gray. I don't know why Blogger is doing that.  

and then, of course, there are the “missions”

Not all “missions” are shown. There are 6 in all, plus recording sheets to keep your students accountable!

And a few days ago I added my Christmas Clues Inferring and Context Clues Center. If you’ve seen my “Costume Clues” or “A Feast of Clues” it’s set-up a lot like that!






Those are the new items, but my hands-down favorite item in my store is my “Christmas Around the World” unit.



I created it because I wanted my students to have resources to read about each country’s celebrations.  I didn’t want to have to buy a bunch of books from Amazon, or rent them from the library, and I wanted my students to do the reading…



All mini-books are interactive, which means students read about different customs and traditions for each country and then complete an activity on each page…







It’s a HUGE hit and the best part is that my kiddos RETAIN what they’ve learned because they’ve done the reading themselves and interacted with the pages.

Read more about Christmas Around the World in my classroom here.



And here are some other items you might want to add to your cart..

Click the image to check it out on TpT!

Now, for the GIVEAWAY…I’m making it SUPER SIMPLE!  Just comment below with your email…I won’t even make you answer a question this time!  I will pick one winner to pick $20 worth of product from my store. You can have anything you want! It doesn’t have to be listed here!

I will pick a winner before I go to bed tonight. The winner will be announced on my FB Fan Page, so make sure you like me :)

Last time I did a giveaway a few people had trouble commenting. If that happens to you, email me (acrossthehallin2nd@gmail.com) and I'll add you to the "Husband Random Numer Generator List". Please only email me if you cannot leave a comment.

Whatever you’re buying, I hope you have shopping the sale tomorrow and Tuesday :)

Married and MERRY!!!!!

Our Christmas Card

{2012}

Merry Christmas everyone!  

I have been a total slacker this week, but I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything that would make me crazier or more stressed out than usual!  We are hosting Christmas Eve tonight, and I’m running around trying to make everything absolutely perfect!

Sandy Hook is still very much on my mind, and I decided to really just enjoy my students’ company this past week, and I sooooooo did!  We had an absolute blast, I tell ya!  I can’t wait to share pictures {wish I could of their cute little faces :( }, but I’ll be sure to share all of the pics I actually can…including some ideas for NEXT year :)

Have a wonderful, lovely, magical, happy, happy Christmas!  Count your blessings!
~Halle

Holidays Across the Hall {So Far…}

We are immersed in holiday fun right now!  Our days are literally so packed, and we have so much left to do, I wonder how we’re gonna fit it all in, but we are having such a blast, you won’t catch me {or any 7 year old for that matter} complaining.



We’ve taken off for our Trip Around the World on Reindeer Airlines to see how other countries celebrate Christmas and other holidays. 

Our grade partner, Erica, found this Airline Safety Video on YouTube.  It’s from Thompson Airlines.  Our kiddos were enthralled by this video.  Enthralled, I tell you!  They thought it was the coolest thing ever.  It is so adorable {little kids + British accents= Too cute!!!!}, I highly recommend showing it anytime you “fly” somewhere with your class.



So far we’ve been to the Scandinavian Peninsula, Germany, and France.  My class is loving the booklets from our unit.  I am loving that they are so engaged in what we’re doing.  They are genuinely interested in what they’re learning and having a blast.  One of my boys told his mom he wants to dress up as a Star Boy {Sweden} for Christmas!!

These booklets come from our Holidays Around the World unit.  It was a Top 10 Seller last week {whaaaaaaaaaat?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?}, which put us over the moon!  We’re so excited so many of you are using this unit to teach your kiddos about holidays around the world!

We also started our Secret Santa unit last week.  Oh my word, are they eating this little community building activity up!

They got really excited when I put their envelopes up.  “What are those for Mrs. Hird?”, “Are we getting new mailboxes?”, “Do we get to take those home?!!!???”, “Is that for candy? Money? Tickets?”

We got right to work on our Secret Santa messages.



Before I actually let them spread out and write their messages, we talked about being as specific as possible to make our friends feel good about themselves.  The messages they wrote were pretty funny, and down right sweet…

Shane does always dance to MJ.  And we do always have a really good time!

C Hming does have really neat handwriting {not just in math}, and he is so, so, so sweet.

We have a few more messages to get out before Christmas Break next week, and I can’t wait to see what else they write!

If this looks like something you’d like to do with your class, click the pic below.

I’ll be back later this week with an update on our trip around the world, as well as a cute Christmas craftivity for even and odd numbers, and to share how we’ve been working on arrays.  At least I think I will…I have HIGH HOPES!

Have a good night friends :)

Halle