Christmas Book Recommendations

I LoVe kids books! What elementary teacher doesn't?! I have bins of books and bins of bins of books! Books on every bookcase and stacked everywhere! My bookcases at home are ridiculous. The books are spilling out of the shelves and onto the floor! Maybe I should have asked for another bookcase for Christmas!

Here's some of my favorite collections of books from posts in the past.





And now ... some of my favorite Christmas books!
Mrs. Claus Takes a Vacation

What happens when Mrs. Claus needs to be recharged? She takes a vacation, of course! But what happens to the North Pole and Santa when she's away?

Franklin learns first hand the importance of choosing the right gift to give away. And that it's more blessed to give than to receive.

Check out this book to find out what happens when Santa gets stuck!
I have used Nancy's "Oh No! Santa's Stuck" unit for several years to accompany this book. Check out the link to see her wonderful activities!

Did you know Santa had other jobs before he became ... well ... Santa? This story tells about his other jobs and why he wasn't any good at them!

Jerry Pallotta is one of my favorite authors! 
Who Will Guide My Sleigh Tonight?
Santa thinks maybe he should have some different animals guide his sleigh on Christmas Eve night. 

Santa needs some help in the workshop this year. Who will he get?

And Rob Scotton's famous Splat books!
Splat wonders if he's been good enough for a really big present this year. Will he get it??

This touch and feel book is a fun one as you read through how Splat's family gets ready for Christmas!

Happy Christmas book reading!

Featured Teacher Tuesday

Happy Tuesday Morning!
Welcome back for another Featured Teacher Tuesday!
This week we are showcasing Melinda King from Tales of the Sassy Teacher.
Melinda is married with 2 children who are 10 months apart. She has started her 15th year of teaching. She has been at the same school for her entire career. She has taught 1/2 split classes for 2 years, 2/3 split for 1 year, 2nd grade for 2 years, K-2 reading teacher for 5 years, K-2 writing for 4 years, and this year she is teaching 1st grade math. Melinda’s dream is to teach Kindergarten or her 1st graders all day with all subjects.
Melinda has been on TPT since 2011 but hasn’t really started selling until a year ago. She loves to create products that are not just for sales. She creates to get her students excited about learning.
Some of the products in her store that her kids love using are…..
 

  

We're off for a couple of weeks to enjoy the Christmas season!  See you back in January for more Featured Teacher Tuesdays!


Math Monday: Double Digit Addition and Subtraction


This past week, my second graders have continued to work on double digit addition with regrouping.
We did a quick review of addition without regrouping using this.


 Then we started into subtraction without regrouping. After lots and lots and lots of practice on dry erase boards and in our math notebooks, we were ready for this.

Then seriously two days later ... we were ready for double digit addition with regrouping! Lots and lots and lots of modeling and practicing and practicing and practicing!
We had so much fun checking our own work using this great product!
 The larger images are so distorted, so I had to keep them small. The QR codes kept my kids moving because they wanted to "be the teacher!"

Today we started subtraction with regrouping. I was pleasantly surprised that they did well! We practiced about 10 problems and several of them needed little support after the first 2 or 3!  I can't wait to use these later this week!
 

Check back tomorrow for a Featured Teacher Tuesday!  Have a great week!

Math Monday: Christmas Patterns

Today's Math Monday features the activities my first graders completed in math groups today.  My second graders were benchmark testing during math, so I was able to spend quality, uninterrupted time with my first graders!

I had 3 centers/groups going today.
 identify the image which goes next in a pattern
 
I used this Christmas Patterns unit for this activity. It was so much fun! I added Velcro dots on the ? on each card and then on the back of the small pieces. The children just had to attach the piece and bring their cards to me to check!
Christmas Patterns

 extend a pattern
 
I used this Christmas Patterns unit for this group. I love how the children had to identify the pattern and then extend it beyond just the next image. I made 3 bags out of the activities in this unit and had 3 children in each group. They moved 3 times around the table to work on patterns from each of the bags. They worked so quietly and diligently!
 Christmas Patterns

seat work
I used this set of winter themed pattern printables for seat work. I made a little booklet of 5-6 pages for the children to work on at their seat independently. This was easy for them, but it was fun to just sort and color!
Patterns

One of my units in my TpT shop is this Christmas Patterns unit. There are 6 pages of various Christmas images for children to use when creating various patterns, along with 2 pages for an evaluation.

Next week my second graders will adding and subtracting two digit numbers with regrouping and borrowing. Check back Monday to see what we've been up to!

Featured Teacher Tuesday: Elisabeth

Featured Teacher Tuesday is back from our Thanksgiving break!  
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This week we are featuring Elisabeth from Literacy and Lattes!

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Elisabeth has been teaching kindergarten and first grade for 11 years and is a National Board Certified Teacher.  For the past 4 years she has taught a literacy, science and social studies in a first grade classroom and provided one-on-one reading intervention in Reading Recovery.  Elisabeth is passionate about helping her students find a love of reading and making sure that each student feels loved and valued when they come to school each day.  

When she’s not in the classroom or creating products for her students, Elisabeth spends time with her husband and two crazy kiddos.  She loves to hike, read, watch Grey’s Anatomy, put monograms on basically everything and drink way too much coffee!

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Elisabeth is also a Teacher-Author on TpT.  You can find her store at Literacy and Lattes and she specializes in products for Reading Recovery/reading intervention and science in the primary classroom.  

Her newest product - Learning Letters with QR codes - is a perfect no prep literacy center.    
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Her best selling product - Reading Recovery and Small Group Data Collection and Planning -  includes everything you need to track data in reading intervention or guided reading groups.

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Elisabeth also loves teaching science in the classroom and making materials for simple science lab investigations.  

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Keep your literacy centers fun and engaging with the Super Fun Centers packs!
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And how about some freebies?!?
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You can also follow Elisabeth by clicking the links below.

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See you next week, when we feature Sarah from Learning is for Superstars!

Be sure to check out what these other great teacher bloggers have in store for you this week!

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