Making a Gingerbread House is a Christmas Tradition for me

My daughter and I have made a gingerbread house for the past 3 years, so I guess you can call it our Christmas tradition to make one every year.

We bought a house that was already made and we had to assemble it. We used the frosting as glue to hold the walls together.  It came with a lot of frosting ( 3 bags full), so we were sure to use lots of frosting, so our house doesn't fall over like it did last year.

Here are a few pictures:




This kit came with a lot of candy for decorating. We used a lot and still have some leftover.









Thanks for taking a look.  Do you make Gingerbread Houses for Christmas?

The Polar Express

This is a great book to read to the students right before Christmas.  In the story a young boy visits Santa in the North Pole.  Santa gives the young boy a magical bell.  It is a cute story that my second graders loved to listen to.
I found this great website that has online stories read by celebrities.  It has the Polar Express.
http://www.storylineonline.net/

Vocabulary wall in the classroom

I call this my Story Blasters wall. I went to training with Nancy Fetzer and learned how important vocabulary development is. If you ever get the chance to go to her training I highly recommend it. She is full of knowledge and full of energy. Here is what I do with my vocabulary wall:

Day one: I pick 5-7 vocabulary words from the story that I think are important. I print out the words along with a picture and put it in my pocket chart. I also use the vocabulary words to write my own story.

Day two: we read my story together and look for the vocabulary words in it. I use yellow highlighter tape to highlight the vocabulary words.

Day three: we reread the story and then the students can either copy one of my sentences and illustrate it or they can use the vocabulary words and write their own story.

Day 4-7: the students practice reading the story for fluency practice.

Easy Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

Here is the pie I made for Thanksgiving. It was easy to make and everyone loved it. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup peanut butter
-1 (8oz.) package of cream cheese, softened
-1 (12 oz) container (4 1/2 cups total) cool whip
-1 prepared pie crust
-1 (11.75 oz.) jar of hot fudge ice cream topping
-1/2 cup sugar

Helpful hints - which I didn't notice until halfway through the recipe, so it's worth noting first:
-Be sure to allow the cream cheese to soften before getting ready to make the pie.
-Usually cool whip is found in the frozen section of the grocery store, but put it in the fridge before making this because it needs to be soft and thawed for this recipe.

How to Make the Pie (it's very simple):

1.  Put the 1 cup peanut butter, softened cream cheese, and 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer on medium until well combined.

2.  Gently mix in 3 cups of cool whip and stir by hand until combined.

3.  Add the mix to the pie crust and use a spatula to smooth the top.

4.  Save 2 TBS of the hot fudge for later by putting it in a plastic baggie.  Microwave the remaining hot fudge for about 1 minute.  Stir the fudge mixture and pour on top of the peanut butter mixture.

5.  Refrigerate the pie for 2 hours until the hot fudge cools and hardens.

6.  Spread the remaining whipped topping (1 1/2 cups) on top of the fudge.

7.  The top the the pie is decorated with hot fudge and peanut butter.  I don't have a fancy decorating tool, so I put the fudge in a plastic baggie and cut a small corner of the bag to allow the fudge to be spread across the top of the pie for decoration.

8.  Take about 2 TBS of peanut butter and put in a plastic baggie with a corner cut and decorate.

This pie is very tasty, try it and let me know what you think...

Parent Tip: How to Communicate With Your Child's Teacher

Most teachers today have an email account and technology is being used more and more in the classroom. One of the easiest ways to stay in touch with your child's teacher is through email.


First of all, ask your Child's teacher for her email address. Send a short, brief email to just introduce yourself and to get the teacher's email address in your address book.

Communicating with the teacher through email is an easy way to stay connected with the teacher.

My All Time Favorite Book

Are you my mother is my favorite story of all time.

My mom read me this story over and over so many times that I memorized the words before I even learned to read.  I recommend this book for any young child that is just learning to read. This is a book that a child will cherish and save for a long time.  I still have my copy from 35 years ago.

Easy reward - Big Deal to kids

I used to spend a lot of my own money buying items for the treasure box as a reward for the students. Then I realized there are many rewards the students enjoy that cost the teacher nothing. Here are a few free rewards:

1. Sit at the teacher's desk for two hours of the day.
-This one is one of my students favorite rewards. They love to work at my desk for part of the day.

2. Line leader for the day
-Instead of making this a job why not make this a reward instead. Students love to be first in line and this is a very easy reward.

3. Extra recess (PE)
-PE is required, but something that many teachers don't do on a regular basis because of time. When the students have good behavior I'll keep tally marks on the board. I put the tally marks under the heading "extra recess" but we really go out, play a fun game together, and have the required PE time for the week.

4. Eat lunch in the class
-This is very simple to do and I've learned that kids think this is the neatest thing ever. One tine when a student was eating in the class I overheard her saying, "This is the best day ever!"

5. A positive compliment
- Many times teachers spend all their time correcting bad behavior that we forget to recognize good behavior. Students thrive from positive attention and feel happy when the teacher notices the good behavior.

Funny things kids say

We were learning about different kinds of books. I told about atlas, thesaurus, and encyclopedia. One boy asked what an encyclopedia is. I said if you want to find out about bears you can look in an encyclopedia. He said he would just look on the Internet.
I told him when I was little I had a computer, but there was no such thing as the Internet.
He replied, "What good is a computer without the Internet?"
He was serious. I thought it was funny because young children don't know the world without the Internet.

Time for Report Cards

Yes, it is already that time of year... Report Card Time!!  If you are like me, you dread this time of year.  Here are some tips to make report card time a little easier:

- Notify students of which tests they will be taking during the week.  In college I always knew what would be on the test and could study for the test.  Elementary students should be treated with the same kind of respect.  Give them a chance to develop good study skills and help them prepare for upcoming tests.

-Keep a file for each student and file all tests and papers to help evaluate the students and fill out the report cards.

-Give yourself plenty of time to do the grades.  Don't wait until the last minute or you will be more likely to make careless mistakes.

-If you are like me, reward yourself with something small once you have finished the report cards.  My reward is a coffee from Starbucks.

Welcome to my blog

Hello.  I have been a teacher for over 10 years and love (almost) every minute of it.  The school year goes so fast I decided to start this blog to keep memories of my year and hopefully entertain anyone who reads this along the way.  To keep the privacy of my class I will not use real names when posting.  I hope you find this blog enjoyable, helpful, and interesting to read.