It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

HOORAY!  It's Christmas week!  This is hands down my favorite week out of the school year!  Today we had Christmas Around the World!  We spent two hours this morning rotating second grade classes to our different "countries" (a.k.a. classrooms).  The morning went by SO quickly and the kids were SOOOOO good!  (Fingers crossed this doesn't jinx me for tomorrow... which is Grinch Day!  EEEEEE!!!!!!!)  Have I mentioned I LOVE this week!?!  So... Christmas Around the World.  I was Sweden today.  We only had 20 minutes to introduce our country, stamp their Oh So Cute Christmas Around the World passports, and do our craft.  So... instead of doing the usual seven candle wreath on our heads like St. Lucia, we made blue birds to <i>adorn</i> our Christmas trees or rooms at home (adorn was one of our recent vocabulary words).  Anywho... take a peek at how one turned out:

 

I'll get the templates for the wings and bird's body and instructions uploaded over break.  We made booklets for the kids to keep their crafts in too.  I typed up information for different countries, we copied it on regular copy paper and folded up the bottom portion of the paper to make a pocket.  Then we cut green construction paper for the front cover and back and stapled it all together.  This does take quite a bit of time and I say we because my amazing mother helped me make them!  Check out the books and crafts the other teacher's did below:

I can upload the pages for everyone to download too if you all want.  Leave a comment and let me know!  I &hearts; comments!  Also, I have NO idea where any of these ideas came from, so if you know the origin let me know and I'll post a link!

Our classroom elf Fred has been VERY busy last week and this week too!  Last week, Fred stole one of my kids scissors, crayons, and glue for the day, dumped out cornstarch from our Oobleck project and made a Cornstarch Angel, and drew a nice little picture of himself for us all to see.  This morning we entered the classroom to find that he'd brought everyone candy canes!  I can't wait to see what Fred has gotten into tonight!

I still have lots to share!  So check back soon!  I'll do my best to capture some pictures from Grinch Day tomorrow!  Yay!  Hope everyone else is having a great week too!!!