Christmas Randomness & Grinchy Fun!

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas filled with lots of fun and family! We had a great Christmas and it was nice spending it with our families! Lots of good food, and Santa was very good to us this year :)

I am going to take you back to before Christmas break! As you may or may not know, we had a few snow days, so that kind of messed up our plans. We decided to do our gingerbread unit after we come back in January... It is too fun of a unit to skip! {That also means we had all our plans ready for the first week back-SCORE!} We did make our gingerbread houses on the very last day as planned though... there was no way we were coming back to that craziness!! :) The houses were a hit, and our parent helpers really made it so much easier!

 

For parent gifts, we had our kiddos make these cute little reindeer ornaments that are floating around all over Pinterest! These ornaments are styrofoam and glittery! Thanks, Hobby Lobby!

 

 

Amy and I gave these gifts to our teammates for Christmas... "Wishing you a holiday season full of peace, love and hope soap!" Another cute idea found on Pinterest!

 

 

Every year our kiddos get to wear pajamas and watch The Polar Express! Our elves brought some bells from Santa's sleigh! The kids were so excited! When we wrote Santa letters earlier in the month, the only gift one of our little girls asked for was a bell from Santa's sleigh. How cute is that?! Looks like she got her Christmas wish! **I downloaded these tags last year but do not know who I got them from! If you know, please let me know so I can give credit!**

 

Okay, now onto some Grinchy fun! Most of these ideas are from my pack, A Mean, Green Christmas. However, as you probably know, it had to be revised, so if you see the "G" word in any of the photos, just know that if you purchase this pack, it will NOT say the "G" word anywhere :)

 

 After reading the book, we listed the Grinch's character traits at the beginning of the book. We also wrote adjectives to compare his heart at the beginning and at the end of the book.

 

Then we had our kids write a few sentences about how he was at the beginning and how he changed at the end. 

 

 

We had the kids write "How to be a Grinch" and we used Deanna Jump's templates for our cute Grinchy friends!

 



 

After comparing his heart at the beginning and end, the kids realized we were using a lot of opposites! So we taught them about antonyms. First we read Straight and Curvy, Meek and Nervy. Our kids were pretty familiar with antonyms, even though this was the first big lesson on them. We made an anchor chart and brainstormed LOTS of antonym pairs! Then we played a whole group matching game, using hearts to tie in the Grinch :)

 

 

 

For some Grinchy math, we worked on fractions! Inside the sacks are the things the Grinch stole from the Whos! They had to write the fraction of ornaments, stockins, and presents.

 

 

The kids worked in partners to practice their measurement by measuring the Whos' gifts! This was a big hit for sure!

 



 

By the end of the week, Mr. Grinch wasn't feeling grinchy anymore... so we did some graphing using gumdrops that he dropped off for us! {you can use M&M's too, or any red and green candy}.

 

 

On our 3rd Annual Grinch Day, we all wore green and enjoyed some Grinch Grub and Grinch Punch while we watched the cartoon version of the book! One of my favorite Christmas movies ever!

 

 

Last but not least, Mr. Grinch dropped off these green candy canes for the kiddos! 

 

 

WHEW. If you made it to the end, THANKS! I hope you enjoy your Christmas break, and let's hope it doesn't go by too fast!! :)