Random Acts of Christmas Kindness

This Christmas season I knew I wanted to spread some holiday cheer and help teach Reagan that Christmas means more than just presents.  I looked online and found a fantastic website.

Light Em Up

Lil Light O Mine has compiled a TON of wonderful ideas for families to perform random acts of Christmas kindness- basically- Light Up Others with Kindness. I.Loved.It.  She posts free gift tags, notes, coloring pages, etc.  Man. There was so much. I really feel inspired to start it earlier next year so we can do even more! I seriously get lost in this woman's blog and mission! 

Here are some pictures of things Reagan and I did this season to Light Up Others with Kindness!

(1)

Donating toys to the Fireman for the Salvation Army!

And Rea Rea got to take a ride in the firetruck!

(2)

Shopping for an Angel Tree child.

(3) 

Give handwarmers and Starbucks gc to the bell ringers outside of the stores.

(4)

Leave 50 cents taped to toy machines and soda machines at Walmart.

(5)

Leave a thank you note and candy for the mailman.

(6)

Deliver candy canes and wish busy shoppers a Merry Christmas.

Reagan had a BLAST doing this and although he was pretty shy at first, he really liked to find people "who needed a smile" when delivering his candy canes. 

I think this will definitely be a new family tradition!

I even took this into our classroom.

My kids had a BLAST doing a 2 weeks full of random acts of kindness!

I did a quick set-up and put each task in a bag on the board.

Day 1

Play with someone new at recess.  

Find someone who looks like they need a friend and invite them to play with you!

Day 2

Pick up trash around your school without getting any grabber (reward from office).  

Do it because it makes you feel good to make your school better.

Day 3

Give someone a compliment today.

What are they good at? What do you like about them?

Day 4

Give someone at recess a sticker and a smile today!

Choose someone who you don't normally play with.

Day 5

Make bookmarks and deliver them with candy canes to our 4th Grade Buddies classroom.

Day 6

 Drop off Christmas candy and thank you notes to our principal.  

Thank her for all of her hard work and tell her why you like our school.

Day 7

Sharpen pencils and deliver them to a special classroom.

Day 8

Give hand warmers to our crossing guard and thank her for helping get to school so safely.

Day 9

Deliver Christmas candy to our cafeteria workers and thank them for all of their hard work!

Day 10

Deliver Christmas candy to the school nurse! 

Our class had so much fun on our "kindness mission" and couldn't wait to open the bags each day.  

I just love doing this and the kids really got into it as well.

Other Christmas Fun at School

There were so many fun holiday things going on at our school before break!

Here is a quick glimpse into the fun:

(1)

parent gifts

This year I decided to doing something a little easier for parent ornament/gifts.

We made reindeer photo ornaments and they were almost stress free!

 front

 back

For parent cards, the kids illustrated gingerbread house cards and wrote sweet little notes.

I didn't manage to get a picture of the wrapping/bag, but if you've read my blog for a few years, its the same snowman one I did in the past. (You can look in my history and find the pictures!)

(2)

Reindeer Run

Our school's annual "turkey trot" got cancelled this year due to the rain, so the PE coaches created the "reindeer run".  Our firsties worse reindeer hats and ran laps around the field as Christmas music played in the background. It was too cute!

After the run there was a raffle for kids to win sports balls and athletic equipment.

It ended with a cool Otter Pop treat.

Such fun!

(3)

Candy Trains

The first grade at my school has been making candy trains each December for over 15 years. This was my first candy train experience (my past first grade team always did gingerbread houses). The candy trains were very fun and the directions were on the smartboard in a step by step process.  We had a lot of parents to help the kids and they turned out super cute!

(4)

Holiday Sing Along

I was so excited for the holiday sing along! The entire school (k-6) gathers in the cafeteria in their pajamas and sings Christmas songs together.  Each grade had a specific song to solo and then there were about 6 that we sang all together.  It was precious and totally got me in the Christmas spirit! :)

Even Reagan came in his pajamas for the sing along! 

Too fun! 

It was so cute to see my little firsties in their jammies!

(5)

Christmas gifts to my kids

This year I used my bonus points from Scholastic to get the kids books for Christmas.  

My mom was awesome enough to wrap them all for me!

(6)

Christmas gifts to my kids' teachers

I got all the kids' teachers Starbucks gift cards and Reagan's teacher a personalized tumbler for her iced coffee. 

(7)

Polar Express

We started by reading the story The Polar Express and doing some work to go with it. Then the day of the PJ day, we all got our tickets to ride the Polar Express.  We watched it on our smart board and had a lot of fun together.

Earlier that morning I had put a package full of bells in the freezer.  I asked our fabulous secretary to call down into our classroom after lunch and say that there was a special package delivered for our class.  She did an awesome job and put in lots of fluff to get the kids excited.  I sent down two of my kiddos (one whom I was so happy to have sent down) to get the package.  Boy.  This little darling came back with the most elaborate story about how she saw Santa Claus, pet the reindeer, etc.  The kids were all staring at her in awe .... She sold it for me. Thank the Lord I sent her down! I think she might actually think she saw them? Who knows... I just had to laugh. 

The kids were in heaven and couldn't get over how cold the bells were (obviously- they were from the North Pole!) and how they smelled just like Santa (not sure where they got that from... but I went with it!) Anyways, it was a great way to end the day!  

Grinch Day in Our Classroom

One day during that last week of school before break, our class had "Grinch Day". It was so much fun! The kids tried to remember to wear green that day (it was a Monday- so after the weekend, many forgot!) and I wore my Grinch tee.  I found a TON of great Grinch ideas off Pinterest from you lovely bloggers- and I really appreciate all of your hard work! There was simply not enough time for it all! 

Here is a little peak into what we did though.

We started the morning off by reading the book.  I was surprised with how many of them had never heard it before!  We then worked in our "Grinch packets" - which were just copies of things I had found and printed off!  We read the Grinch poem together and highlighted contractions and circled rhyming words (in green of course!)  

We also used number clues to color various numbers on a 100 chart. 

The picture ended up looking like a Grinch! 

The kids each got a green candy cane with a little note attached.

I had the hardest time finding solid green candy canes! Let me know if you did this and found yours easily! I ended up finding boxes with 1/2 green and 1/2 red... so I just got those!

We also enjoyed Grinch Punch with Sprite and Lime Sherbert! 

We made Grinch hats and the kids loved wearing them!

We wrote about how we would make the Grinch grin and did a little craft to go with it.

 Grinch Writing Paper from Here! 

I was really pleased that the kids understood the message and could write about what Christmas really means.  They did a great job. Some of their answers included "friends and family, loving each other, taking care of others, celebrating Baby Jesus". Sweet kids.

I found tons of great Grinch stuff here! 

We also made a list of synonyms to describe the Grinch at the beginning and the end of the story. 

Such a fun day to be in First Grade! 

Gingerbread Week in our Classroom

We had a wonderful time integrating gingerbread into our academic areas the first week of December.

I have built quite a collection of gingerbread picture books and the kids loved to compare and contrast them as well as list the story elements.  I also found a lot of supplemental printables from you all in blog-land- so thank you!  Here is a peak into our week.

We integrated the gingerbread man story into our grammar by identifying verbs into a story.

A gingerbread verb book from First Grade Fever! 

We found all of the verbs from our gingerbread man read-alouds and added them to our giant gingerbread man.  The kids had so much fun acting out these verbs! 

We also found this great page for the kids to think of their own gingerbread saying using a different verb. They LOVED it! 

I think this page was from Creative Classroom as well! 

Of course we had to take 1 bite out of our gingerbread cookies and then graph what part we ate first!

I found this graph from Creative Classroom- but of course can't seem to find the link! 

If it's your's let me know!! 

This positional word book was perfect for our language arts as well - Thanks Kindergrarten Hoppenings! 

We've been working on sorting syllables and this was a perfect review!

Gingerbread Syllable Sort from Deana Jump's Pack.

The kids decorated their own gingerbread man / girl and identified that the word gingerbread was a compound word (they are kind of obsessed with these!) So they thought of other compound words! 

And my kids loved this song/video - Gingerbread Man

There is so much wonderful gingerbread activities- and just simply not enough time!