Scrapbook Paper Collaged Christmas Trees

Elfie Selfies

My last minute addition to our campus' holiday door decorating:

 



Door Decorating Contest

Our school had a holiday door decorating contest during December. This was my contribution to the art room door. I created a giant gingerbread house with various pieces of candy and a friendly gingerbread man.

Kindergarten Thumbprint Holiday Lights

Kindergarten practiced making wavy lines with permanent black markers. After making their lines, they added holiday lights with their thumbprints.

First Grade Overlapping Candy Canes

First Grade needed some practice back in December on how to draw objects in front of others. So, they practiced by drawing overlapping candy canes. They could make them whatever size and add whatever color patterns they wanted.

Fifth Grade Birch Trees

To experiment with color mixing and tape resist, the fifth grade students created birch trees. They first added three strips of painters tape to white construction paper. They then started with blue tempera paint and painted the middle section of the paper horizontally. They then added white to create a tint for the lower third of the paper. They added black to the blue tempera paint to create a darker shade for the top third. They then pulled off the tape to reveal the white. They added small details in blue to the birch trees to show texture.

Catching Snow in Fourth Grade

Fourth Grade students performed "Show Me The Snow" for their music program this year. To go along with this and some previous lessons on viewpoints, they drew various shapes such as half circles, circles, and rectangles and pieced them together to make a person looking up to catch a snowflake. They added details such as hair to make it more like them.

Third Grade Snowmen

We obviously went with a snowman theme in the younger grades during winter. For this lesson, I asked the third graders to take turns laying on the ground while others stood around them. We talked about how the view of their friends is different than if they are sitting or standing next to them. They then pretended that they were laying in snow somewhere and magical snowmen came to life and surrounded them. Using the corners of their square paper as reference starting points, they students created four snowmen with different details to show that perspective. They used oil pastels for their creations.

Second Grade Snowmen

Second Graders also created snowmen but they created them by cutting paper. They traced various sized bowls for the body and head. They cut rectangles shapes for a scarf. They added various stripes and details to the scarves in a pattern. They also drew a triangle shape for a carrot nose. Before gluing it down, they positioned it in various locations to make the snowman appear that he was looking in different directions. We talked about how there was no need for eyes because if you pointed the nose upward, it makes the snowman appear as if its looking up.

First Grade Snowmen

I asked First Graders what a snowman would look like if they tilted their head to the left or to the right to begin a discussion on perspective. After the discussion, the students drew a snowman from one of the corners at an angle to show that perspective. They colored their snowmen with oil pastels and added various details such as scarves, mittens, hats, etc.

Kiindergarten Snowmen

Kindergarten practiced fine motor skills by tracing circles of various sizes, cutting them out, and then arranging them however they chose to make it look like the snowman was looking up at the sky. Some of the kids chose to use four or five circles, some chose three, and some chose to use just two. They all turned out cute!

 

Holiday Collaborative Projects

During December, since we had a short month, my students mostly worked on collaborative projects. These are some Christmas trees that they made out of tomato cages, mesh fabric, and zip ties. Once I modeled for them how to get started, they were able to easily complete these on their own. We decorated the stage with them and in front of the library. 4th Grade also used them for their holiday PTA program. Included is a picture of a sign the students and I made for their show using the school's poster maker, some die-cuts, scissors, and glue.

Merry Christmas!

From our characters to yours, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Party

On our last day before the Christmas break, we had our class party. The students made Christmas trees out of ice cream cones, icing, candy, and sprinkles. They also had "magic" drinks made from Sprite and candy canes. Thank you to all of the parents who sent items for the kids to enjoy. Thank you also to the parents who helped set up and clean up.

Holidays Around the World

In writing we researched and compared the role Santa Claus plays in The United States, Germany, France, and Mexico. As a whole group, we charted our findings on a grid for who the gift giver is, what he looks like, how he travels, when he comes, and where he leaves gifts. The students then took notes on their own copy of the grid. Using their notes, they chose to countries, and their version of Santa Claus, to compare on a Venn Diagram. After completing the Venn Diagram, they added heads, hats, legs, and arms to the Venn Diagram to look like Santa. Later in Social Studies we compared even more of the traditions of each country. We also looked at the traditions of Hanukkah in Israel as a part of our Social Studies lessons.

Polar Express Day

Friday we had our annual school-wide Polar Express Day. The day started out with a holiday sing-along in the cafeteria. We then went to the library where the office staff and specialty teachers did a Readers' Theater version of The Polar Express. The students were then treated to hot chocolate. All of first grade joined us in our class to watch the movie as well - a very rare treat for the kids. And, of course, I read the story to my class and we created a Story Map together to identify the story elements. Below are some pictures from our day:

The pictures below were taken to go on The Polar Express train ornament that the teachers make for the students each year. Fellow teachers, I didn't get a picture of the one we made this year, but if you are interested, you can see an example here from a previous year. We also have the students a bell necklace as a connection to the story.

Holiday Pictures

I downloaded and printed these adorable holiday photo props that I found on Pinterest. I took individual pictures of each student for them to put in a card for their parents. I also took a class photo that they could keep. Here are some of the silly photos we took.

Holly Wreath Fact Families

To quickly review addition and subtraction fact families, the students created Holly Wreaths. They counted how many leaves and how many berries and wrote their corresponding number sentences. You can download the templates for this mini-lesson here.

If Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney

The students wrote to explain what they would do if Santa got stuck in the chimney. A lot of the students said they would ask their parents for help. Several said they would call 911 or firemen. One said he would tickle Santa with a feather until he sneezed so hard he would come out of the chimney. Their stories were really funny!

Elf Descriptive Writing

The students created elves out of holiday scrapbook paper. They then wrote to describe their elves. They also wrote one thing they would do if they were an elf.