The Christmas Party

We start the morning with the K-4 kids choosing between 5 
"theaters" to go to for a movie.  I showed the movie Frozen, 
for my room and it was such a fun time! { It isn't showing up in 
this photo however.}  I loved listening to the kids laugh 
and we all sang the songs together.  Such fun!

After recess in the gym, the party began with 
three fun games!  Here they are fishing for 
candy canes.

They balanced a snowball on a spoon in a relay race.

Then they tried to use team work to keep a 
small ball from falling.

Santa surprised us and came to the classroom! 

There were smiles all around.

The lunch was delicious!

These Rudolph gift/treat bags were very cute!

We played musical gifts.  The girls passed a girl gift and when the music 
stopped, whoever was holding the gift got to keep it.

We ran out of time, so most of the boys got to rip into 
those gifts at the same time!  Fun!

A deck of bird playing cards from the teacher will help them remember
 the birds' names for years to come and to teach others about birds.  
I also sent home a list of Math card games for them to play with 
family and friends.  Combining birds and math? It seems like a win-win!

Chimney Swifts?

My grandma made these gingerbread houses years ago 
and they were just given to me, so I brought them to school.  
The kids loved them!  One boy looked in the chimney and 
said, "Well!  There are no Chimney Swifts in this chimney!"  
That was pretty funny! In case you didn't know, Chimney Swifts 
are a unique bird that sleep in chimneys, but otherwise 
they fly all day long without stopping.  They eat, drink 
and bathe while flying!  That is such and interesting 
bird behavior!

A Christmas Tree Decorated with Birds

The kids made birds to decorate the tree.  We have 
Northern Cardinals,American Goldfinch, 
Great Horned Owl, Black-capped Chickadee, 
Bald Eagle and a Snowy Owl as a topper!

Bird Videos We Love!

Here are some interesting videos that we have enjoyed.  They begged me to put them on the blog, so that they can watch them with their family!  Click on the title and it should come up.

The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

Feeding the Rufous Humminbird out of Your Hand

Feeding Frenzy - It shows many birds at a feeder in Indiana in the winter.  The kids were very excited when they saw it!

Finally! SNOW!

Here they are lined up at our door waiting to come in!

These kids are SO happy playing in the snow!

They are pretty silly too!

Handprint Winter Birds

This is my favorite bulletin board of the year.

The kids dipped their hands in paint and I helped them print a bird.  Then after the paint dried they added the details with crayons.

Another Great Drawing!

This is a really good raccoon drawing by a five year old boy!

 These kids seem to surprise me nearly everyday!