So It Has Begun....The Holiday Season!!!

Two weeks before break, and we are full into the Christmas hustle and bustle! We won't even mention that I have had the flu for the past week, because that doesn't mean a thing when it comes to holiday goodness! There is *no* time for that! 

Seriously, last week we had somewhere around 70{ish} kids absent with the flu, sickness, virus from hell! 70!!!!!! It was a whole lotta craziness around our school. I am pretty sure that we turned into the ultimate teacher germaphobes, spraying a constant stream of Lysol everywhere that we walked, and wiping everything down within a two mile radius with Clorox wipes (ten times a day instead of the usual three). Thank goodness most of that has passed, and we are ready for a little holiday cheer in our classroom...including daily visits from one of our favorite holiday friends! 

They could not wait for Scouty to come back for a visit from the North Pole! {Yes...they are in third grade...and they still love him the same!} 

Today, we finished up our super cute {if I do say so myself} 12 Days of Christmas songs...South Carolina style! If you are not from SC, you may not appreciate this as much, but this activity is one of my favorite Christmas activities to date! The students used everything that we have covered in SC history to write their very own version of the 12 Days of a South Carolina Christmas. We had everything from fighting patriots, to prowling pirates, and lord proprietors, mixed with a whole lot of peach tree lovin'. I loved hearing their very cute and extremely creative lyrics. For our little craft, we recreated our state flag and replaced the Palmetto Tree with a Christmas Tree! 

I love seeing our hall decorated with holiday goodness! 

Along with writing like mad men and women, we are also preparing for our big multiplication and division unit test. Today, we finished up by pulling it all together with a little fact family review. 

The kids used these cute dice shakers (from the Dollar Tree)

They created a multiplication problem and solved for the answer. Then, they created a multiplication and division fact family using their three numbers. 

They were pumped to find out that their quiz would be to create a piece of holiday candy...showing their knowledge of basic fact families. Our room is finally beginning to look like Christmas. 

We are also trying to finish up our sound and motion unit that I posted about last week. Sound is pretty tricky for these guys, so we have been making lots of homemade instruments right along with trying our hands at the real things. Today, I had a violin in my room. I am thinking that I need lessons. They are so fun to play! 

We used bottles to listen for different pitches! Super tricky, but they loved the experiment! 

Well, that is all for our Monday! 9 more school days left....and so the holiday season has begun! Happy Holidays, friends!