So I've been slacking again with coming on here because with everything going on with the holidays there was no time! My winter break started on Christmas Eve :( . So there was that, then Christmas, then my birthday (the 26th), then it was cleaning up from all of that and worked a bit on school stuff, and then it was New Year's Eve. It's just been crazy. I did get another unit done for my tpt shop so that made me happy and I have a ton of stuff to share for the Monthly Monday Made-It, next Monday. lol Just haven't been on here.
We go back to school Monday, January 7th. That is also when the kiddos come back. So today I went into school to get it ready for January and their return. Took all of the holiday decorations down, put Elfie away until next year, switched the monthly book shelf and calendar to January, put up my schedule for Monday, wrote my daily message, got homework packets ready (Welcome back to school, have a homework packet lol), morning work ready, name tags switched over to cursive so we can start learning it, an old bulletin board down and a new one up. That was pretty good for 3 hrs I felt. I don't plan on going back again until Monday now, so I have a couple more days of break left, however that involves putting away Christmas decorations at my house and working on some more things for school. lol
Here is one of the bulletin boards that is still up, our Gingerbread glyphs.
This one is mine, my example. The students were then able to write a story about their gingerbread person or a how-to on how to make one. They turned out cute. Notice all of the green hats? Those are elf gingerbreads. Once one made one, it was a ripple effect. The red one is Santa and the boy who made that one said all of the other ones are his elves. lol Definitely creative!
We had a nice winter celebration party. The kiddos got to come to school in their jammies and bring a pillow, blanket, robe, slippers, stuffed animal, and board game. The morning was work time, but not really. They were mostly finishing their presents for their families (the kids make/decorate calendars to give. I print out monthly calendars and we glue them into a bound book made with construction paper, and then the kids add pictures that they draw for each month, so when you open it up it's like a normal calendar with picture on top, calendar on bottom). Then after lunch they were able to play their board games they brought in, then it was time to go to art, and my parent helpers came in and helped me pass out the supplies for the Rudolph windsocks we were making and start the hot chocolate. They came back from art, we made the art project, and then moved on to the snack craft.
Which was inspired by this pin on pinterest,
I don't have any peanut allergies this year, so this is what we made. The top one is a student's version. lol Still cute and yummy. As they were making those groups were called up to get their other goodies to eat and hot chocolate. Then I put on Garfield Christmas while they were eating. Nice and laid back party, it was great!
Now I'm also linking up with Swimming in Second Grade for her
I agree that most of my boys love and gravitate towards the non-fiction books, but I have other books that they love as well. :)
These are by far the most popular books in my room right now! It's crazy. I've had these books for years. They were one of the $5 Kohl's Cares for Kids books at one time. I also have Dog Train, but it's missing in action. They are books with these silly songs and come with CDs. When I first got them, they just sat there. No one ever "read" them. Last year and this year, they fight over them! I actually had to take them away before break because the same boys would hog them. They love them.
Since I have taken the above away, this is now the most popular book in my class.
Very silly book and of course, they love that it has the "s word" in the title. lol I personally like the Little Red Hen in the book, she makes me laugh.
Other popular books right now are the Pete the Cat books. I have 2 in my room. The first one and this one.
Again, there is music so that's probably a draw for it as well.
All of the above are picked again and again as part of Listen to Reading. The following books are put in their individual book boxes a lot.
These books have been to the book hospital a lot over the years. I think every single page inside the books is taped in. lol If you don't know the books, they are very fun. They star Dav Pilkey's real pets. He took photos of them and created fun stories based on Godzilla and King Kong. They are fun and creative.
I think I own every single Fly Guy book and even have multiples of a couple of them and they are read a lot too. Nice easy reading, cute story about a fly and a boy.
This one is only seeing a little bit of love right now, but I use it to teach alliteration (as each superhero has a name with alliteration and does superhero things with their letter as well). Once I read this book to the class, again it's non-stop love and wanting it for the book boxes. The pictures are really fun in this book as well.
I have a few Phonics Comics that I picked up a couple of summer's ago (the above being one of them), but I also have other comics too. I have the ones from my youth, which actually aren't read as much and others that I bought at the same time as the Phonics Comics (Mickey Mouse and other ones) and those are read quite a bit too.
I also LOVE these books. They are very fun and really is there a kid out that that doesn't like them. I love them even more because it's getting some of my boys to read with expression while reading the stories aloud.
My boys also enjoy Dr. Seuss books and of course right now The Lorax is very popular.
The last piece of "boy" literature I'm going to share are the Lego Magazines. I subscribe and get one I think once a month and it's completely free. The boys get so excited when a new one comes in the mail.
So those are the books my boys love, but all the kids enjoy them. Hope this gave some of you ideas. This may be a dangerous linky for me to look through as I'm a bit of a children's book addict, but it will be fun! :)
