New Christmas Drama Circle Activities

The month of December always brings out the excitement in my students, and for me, one of the best ways to take advantage of that excitement and energy is to pull out the drama circles and let them perform!  Drama circles aren't just for drama though, they are also perfect for engaging in morning meetings, oral reading activities, reading with fluency and expression, following instructions, listening, cooperative learning, and risk taking ... all bundled into a fun activity that always has my students asking to do the activity again.  With December just around the corner, I have created two brand new Christmas Drama Circle activities - 'Twas The Night Before Christmas and Santa's Workshop - that will be so much fun in the upper elementary classroom!

Drama Circles are similar to the "I Have / Who Has" game.  Each drama circle contains 40 cards that follow in a sequence, with each card having a different instruction to act out or say aloud. Students assemble in a circle to perform their scenarios. Cards are passed out randomly, and students can have more than one card (so all cards are used).  As each student finishes acting out his or her card, the student with the next card in the sequence starts acting out his or her card. The game continues until the last card is acted out. 

One of my new drama circles, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, could also be used for a Christmas play or Christmas concert idea.  The format of this drama activity is slightly different - cards alternate between a "narrator card" and an "audience card".  The classic poem is read by the narrators, with the audience (students with audience cards) interrupting and interacting after every few lines.  Narrators could be standing together, with a seated audience scattered around them.

My newest drama circles also contain black and white versions of the drama circle for an ink-saving option, as well as an assessment tracking page to observe and grade your students' performances.

You can take a peek at these Christmas activities individually, or check them out in a Christmas and Winter-themed Drama Circle bundle featuring 6 different drama circles perfect for the month of December and beyond.  This bundle contains:

• Christmas Drama Circle
• Twas the Night Before Christmas Drama Circle
• Snow Day Drama Circle
• A Christmas Carol Drama Circle
• Santa's Workshop Drama Circle
• Winter Drama Circle

If you're new to drama circles and would like to give them a try for the first time, please give my FREE Fairy Tale Drama Circle a try.  Download it HERE.  Enjoy!

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We're Sharing a Smile

With just a day or two left in November, crunch time has officially begun.  I'm currently juggling report cards, Christmas concert preparations, classroom assessments, holiday parties, plus all of the stuff with my own kids and around the house.  I wouldn't trade any of it, though - this is my absolute favorite time of the year.

TeacherspayTeachers is having their annual Cyber Monday/Tuesday sale tomorrow - just in time to put a Cyber Smile on your face (ps - SMILE is the checkout code).  All my resources will be on sale for 20% off, with an additional 10% off at the checkout with the SMILE code.  I know I'll be stocking up to help me get through the next month.  ;)

But ... I wanted to share another smile with you today.  I'm getting together with two of my best teaching friends, Stephanie from Teaching in Room 6 and Kristen from Ladybug's Teacher Files to give you a chance to win a few resources to give you a little help and inspiration.

I'm giving away one of my newest bundles - my Christmas Activity Bundle - filled with some of my favorite December activities that keep my students engaged and learning throughout the busiest month of the year.  This bundle contains 4 of my tried-and-true holiday favorites, plus a brand new resource.

There are 5 different activities included in this bundle.  The activities cover persuasive writing skills, creative writing skills, grammar skills, drama skills, oral presentation skills, cooperative learning skills, listening skills, and following directions skills.  Throughout all activities, there is an element of reflection and rigor – allowing students to reflect on all of the magic December brings.

The Dear Santa, I Can Explain persuasive writing activity could be completed over a few days (or longer), and makes a great December bulletin board.

The Giving Tree Craftivity needs a few classes to complete (two different versions are included) and results in a beautiful display that can be shared at school and then at home.

The Christmas Drama Circle and Christmas Homonym Letter make great last day activities when you need no-prep, high interest activities to enjoy the excitement of the last day with your students.

Lastly, the Stick-It Together Collaborative Writing Activity can be completed in writing centers or small group activities throughout the month of December.

Enter below for a chance to win this resource, PLUS Teaching in Room 6's Essay of the Month, AND Ladybug's Teacher Files' Instant Checklists.  And then be sure to visit their blogs to enter and increase your chances of winning.  :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Hop on over to visit my friends to see what they have for you.  :)  The winners from each of our blogs will receive all three of our resources.
Just click on the buttons below.

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Art Feature - Line and Design Christmas Trees

This was a fun, quick, and easy art project we took on this week.  I'm definitely in the Christmas mood already, and wanted to bring a little bit of into the classroom.  I love line and design art projects - so simple, and yet so effective.

For this one, we started by drawing some simple holiday and Christmas themed shapes and words on our paper (we used plain white computer paper) and then outlined them in black sharpie.

We then divided our paper into many sections using a combination of straight and curvy lines (but we didn't let any of the lines run through the Christmas shapes we had already drawn.

We then drew in a simple Christmas tree shape, and outlined it in green sharpie.  They also used the same green sharpie to go over the previously drawn lines that ended up inside of the Christmas tree shape. (Students had the option of adding a star and a few Christmas balls to their tree).  

They then used different shades of green pencil crayons to colour in the sections within the tree (patchwork style).   

Once the tree was coloured, they went back to their black sharpies and filled in the sections around the tree with different variations of lines and designs.  I LOVE how they turned out.

This is our (very) large bulletin board that I display most of our art on (some of it makes it onto bulletin boards in the hall).  This year I've tried to keep a sample of all the art we've done in the year.  So, when we're ready to post a new art project, I take down all but one row of the previous art, and add all the new art underneath (we might have to start fresh at the beginning of second term).  I laminate all of our art projects, so that's why the pieces at the top look so shiny.  Once an art project comes off the board, we store them in our art portfolios until the end of the year when we turn them into our "Art and Writing Books" for students to take home at the end of the year.  You can read about that project HERE.

Well, that's about it.  Hope you're having a relaxing weekend!  Happy Saturday!!!

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Dear Santa ... I Can Explain

Well, we're officially winding down before Christmas holidays, but that doesn't mean we've put learning on the backburner.  Last week we had a lot of fun writing persuasive letters to Santa - from the point of view of a particular villain from a popular children's fairy tale, story, movie, etc.

Monday morning I posted this letter under the ELMO.  Students read it over and we discussed what it could mean.

On Tuesday we brainstormed a list of villains that students could choose to write from the point of view of.  They had a blast with this - and I was really impressed with their creativity.  They thought of things I totally wouldn't have, such as the "monster under the bed".  LOVE it!

On Wednesday we completed our pre-writing graphic organizer - focusing on three separate sections so all our letters would have three separate paragraphs when completed (can you tell we've been HARD at work on paragraph writing).  

The students wrote their first drafts on Thursday and published them on Friday.  I am so LOVING our class set of netbooks - what a difference it has made in being able to publish our work this year!  I taught the students to make their margins a little smaller so that their good copies would print perfectly on the stationery we had.  When students had finished their letters, I had them draw a quick picture of their villain to post alongside their letter.  The final bulletin board looks fantastic - and the students had a blast writing the letters.  There were a lot of giggles when students were writing their letters.  The adorable elves on this bulletin board are from Melonheadz Illustrating - you can see them HERE.

Today we read through half of the letters and the students voted on whether or not Santa should accept their explanation and take them off the naughty list.  (And it was a perfect way to tie in data management as we made tally charts for the votes and graphed our results).  The rest of the students will read their letters tomorrow.

We're also using these letters for our Christmas Concert / Pageant this Thursday - students voted on 5 letters to share.  We'll start off singing "You Better Watch Out", then Santa will come out in costume and explain to the audience that he has heard some characters wish to plead their innocence to him.  When the students have finished their letters, we'll finish off with a few verses of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - short and sweet - perfect!!!

If you're interested, I posted this activity at my TPT store.  It might be too late for some of you lucky ones already on break, but it just might be the perfect activity for those of you still looking for some fun ways to keep the students learning this week.  Click on the picture to the right to preview this activity.

Happy Monday!  I have never been so happy to see a Monday morning before - I couldn't wait to get to school to spend time with my kiddos this morning.  For those of you back at school, I sincerely hope your day was filled with peace and love.

Jen

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The Perfect Gift - Part 2

I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays, and that they're filled with love and relaxation.  We've had 3(!!!) busy Christmas celebrations in the past two days, so I'm looking forward to some down time today.  Can you say family game day?!?

I wanted to thank-you for all the lovely comments made about the book I "published" for Elizabeth.  It was truly a hit with her, and my favourite Christmas memory.  She brought it with her last night to dinner at my mother-in-law's house, and is already making plans to bring it my parents' house.  (You can see in the pictures that she's wearing the Christmas ribbon pajamas I made for the girls - they turned out so cute!!!)

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!!!  Happy Monday!

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Covered in Glitter - Tuesday Art Feature

I thought I'd throw in one more art feature before Christmas.  I'm sitting here on my couch, finally relaxing (thinking I need a coffee and Baileys), covered from head to toe in glitter.  I guess it's an occupational hazard this time of year ... good thing I like a little "bling" in my life.

We're hard at work on our Christmas craft / parent present right now in the classroom.  We're making subway art coasters.  We started out by creating subway art (with a Christmas theme) on a square piece of blank paper (full size blank paper, cut into a square).  Students were free to add any words or pictures they wanted, but I did encourage them to use as much of the page as possible.

I then took these squares and reduced them on the photocopier to just under 4 inches (reduced to 43% on my photocopier).  I made 4 copies of each student's square, and the students cut out the smaller squares so I could make one copy with all four smaller squares on it (I left the cover of the photocopier open so the background would be black so the students could see exactly how big their squares were).

They then coloured in these squares using sharpies (or any other waterproof marker).  Many students also chose to lightly colour the background with a pencil crayon.

After we cut out the finished squares, we used mod podge to glue them onto our 4 x 4 tiles.  These were just plain white 4" ceramic tiles that I purchased from a home improvement / hardware store for 19 cents a tile.  I added silver glitter to the mod podge (I poured about a tablespoon of glitter right into the mod podge bottle, and gave it a good stir).  I have never done this before, but it worked perfectly - what's a Christmas craft without a little (or lot of) glitter?!?  To apply the mod podge, we used foam brushes from the Dollar Store.

We did 4 coats of mod podge altogether on the tops of the coasters - letting each coat completely dry before adding the next.  We then gave them a spray with clear varnish (also purchased from the home improvement store), added some felt pieces to the underneath of the tile so they wouldn't scratch any surface they were put then, and then we wrapped them up for the kids to give as a gift.  It's a great little gift, and the kids are so proud of them!  I think they're doing a fantastic job - here are a few from my class:

Because the 4 coats of mod podge (and the drying of the mod podge) could be difficult to complete all at the same time with a class of 28, I set up a small 4 person table in the classroom we used as an art station over 2 days.  We continued with our school day as usual, but when students were finished their work, if there was an available spot at the art station, students could slip back to the table to put a quick coat of mod podge on their tiles.  It worked perfectly, all students finished over the 2 days with minimal interruptions to our regular school day and school work.

Materials:

• 4" ceramic tiles (we used 4 per student)
• mod podge (we used 2 bottles for a class of 28)
• silver glitter (or any light color)
• clear varnish spray paint
• thin sharpie markers (or any waterproof, permanent marker)
• standard white paper
• scissors
• access to a photocopier
• pencil and eraser
• felt squares (glued onto the back - one square for each corner, or one larger square to cover the whole tile)

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Ribbon Christmas Tree

The past few days I've been spending my evening hours a little differently.  I've taken a break from the usual school work (trying really hard to get everything done during school hours), and I've been sewing.  Yes, sewing ... I'm finding it hard to believe, too.  I've been working on Christmas pajamas for my 3 little girls.  I saw the cutest T-shirt on Pinterest a while back (based on those ribbon Christmas trees), and knew I wanted to make it for my girls.  I had a hard time finding plain white shirts for all 3 girls in their sizes, so I opted for a larger size, and decided to turn them into pajamas - I just need to add a pair of leggings and I'll have the cutest matching pajamas for all of them.  

LOOK what I made!!!  How cute is that?  I've finished one and a half shirts so far - one and a half to go ...

And, in case you need a laugh after school today (I know I did), here is a picture of the gingerbread "man" my sweet little four year-old niece made (very lovingly and carefully) for her daddy while at a Christmas party this weekend!  I don't know how my sister kept a straight face!!!

Happy Wednesday!!!

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A Pinteresting Sunday

I had the pleasure of planning and enjoying a fun family day on Sunday ... well that is, at least until my daughter's supper time soccer game.  Oh well, I'll take what I can get.  I've been pinning so many fantastic holiday ideas, I couldn't wait to try some of them out.

We awoke to find our elf, Eddie, causing some mischief in the fridge.  At first the girls were a little worried they couldn't find him anywhere, but when my oldest went to get the milk for breakfast, she erupted into giggles.  Priceless!  I can't believe there are entire websites devoted to the Elf on the Shelf, but I'm having a blast looking through all the pictures.

For lunch I made my girls a "Silly Food Saturday" with a reindeer theme.  My sister makes these fabulous "Fun Food Fridays" and posts pictures on her blog every week.  My daughters follow these lunches with envy, so every once in a while, I give in and make a "Silly Food Saturday".  They appreciate it so much, it totally makes me feel guilty I don't do it more often.



Then it was on to our craft.  I pinned some similar to this a while ago (in case you haven't noticed, I have a slight snowman obsession).  I thought they looked totally do-able for my grade 5/6 class, but I always try these kinds of crafts out on my own girls first.  If they experience success, I know every member of my class will.  Plus, it gives me the opportunity to trouble shoot any potential problems.  Well, I'm happy to announce these went off without a hitch!  The hardest thing was convincing my girls to be patient while the paint dried, but thankfully, even the paint dried quickly.  I picked up these flower pots from the dollar store (3 for a dollar), and an embellishment kit (I think it was for making cards).  Some of the snowman are sporting some fancy pipecleaner and pompom earmuffs.  The toques were made out of old sweaters my little one has outgrown (I cut a bit off the bottom of each arm).  I have plenty of paint on hand.  We used Q-tips to make the eyes and mouth - something I totally recommend - even my three year-old did a fantastic job!  I LOVE these little guys - and I'm so proud of my little girls - these little snowmen were totally completed without my help (well, except for a little glue-gunning).  My three year-old did the one of the left, mine are the next two, my eight year-old did the fourth one, and my five year-old did the last one.  So much fun!  I can't wait to do this craft with my class on the last day of school.

We finished off our day with some cookies and hot chocolate.  I made these Rolo Cookies that I pinned from the Six Sisters' Stuff blog.  Oh my word - they were AMAZING!!!  (I say "were" because they're all gone now - must make more).  They were incredibly simple to make - the hardest part was keeping my girls from eating all the rolos before I got them into the cookies.


What a fantastic day!  I'm already searching through my pinterest boards for new "pinspiration" for next Sunday!

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On the Fifth Day of Christmas ...

I'm SO excited to be hosting Day 5 of TBA's 25 Days of Christmas Gifts!!!  Here we go ... sing along ...

On the fifth day of Christmas, Runde's Room gave to me
     five (x ten) Christmas treats,
     four borrowed ideas,
     three pinterest boards,
     two Christmas freebies,
     and a Baileys recipe.

5.  Five (x 10) Christmas Treats:

Rachel Lynette, from Minds in Bloom, has put together a fantastic (free) Holiday ebook with over 50 Holiday tips and freebies from TeacherspayTeachers authors.  If you haven't downloaded your copy yet, be sure you do - and please share these ideas with other teachers in your building.  There's something for EVERYBODY!  Click HERE to download your copy from TeacherspayTeachers, or HERE to download from google docs (click on file and download).  ENJOY!


4.  Four Borrowed Ideas:


I've borrowed four fabulous holiday ideas from Meet The Dubiens.  Jill (who just happens to be my sister) has put together so many fabulous holiday ideas to keep you busy through the month of December - from fun food Fridays to hand made Christmas gifts.  Click on the pictures below to bring you to each post.  And if you do stop by, be sure to wish her a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY today!

Adorable thumbprint Christmas ornaments (SO cute I think I'll be making a set for our tree).

Snowman cupcakes - how cute are these???  I LOVE anything with snowmen, so these are definitely on my to-do list.

And how cute would these little milk bottles be paired with the snowman cupcakes???

And perhaps my absolute favourite - her Ultimate DIY Holiday Gift Guide.  My nephew LOVES his lego table, and she has made an adorable Tea Party table for my niece.





3.  Three Pinterest Boards:


I've got a little pinspiration for you.  Here are my 3 holiday pinterest boards.  Click on the pictures to see my boards.

Holidays in the Classroom

Christmas Crafts

Christmas Baking











2.  Two Christmas Freebies:


Here are two of my Christmas Freebies.  If you haven't downloaded them yet, just click on the pictures to get your own copies.  ENJOY!

Christmas Cootie Catchers - so much fun!

Christmas Word Problems - Winter and holiday themed word problems to display over the projector or under your document camera.








1.  And a Baileys Recipe:

My perfect after dinner coffee in the winter (and perhaps Sunday morning coffee) has a shot of Baileys in it.  I've been wanting to make my own for a while, and yesterday I did it.  I couldn't test it out though, as I had to run my daughter to a Saturday night soccer game.  But yes, my Sunday morning coffee today was ... special!!!  I altered this recipe from a few recipes I had seen online.  Yummy!!!

I wish you all a VERY happy Sunday!!!  I've got a fun family day planned - finish decorating the Christmas tree, bake some cookies with my girls, and a snowman craft later this afternoon.  Good times!!!

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