Christmas Literacy Centers

It's the final countdown! Christmas break is approaching fast as is the holiday itself! I've been so busy making my holiday activities that I've barely had time to go shopping for my family. Luckily I can get on that since I've finished pretty much everything at this point except for one freebie. (Keep your eyes posted for that one in the next few days). Anyway, here they are!

My most recent center focuses on the suffixes -s, -ed, and -ing. Students take the base word printed on on Santa, then ad the suffixes -s, -ed, and -ing. They will be asked to drop the extra e, double consonants, and change y to i.

Click here to see it on TPT.

I also made a review of long/short vowels for my students. Considering they are a little hyper, I wanted to give them some review. Students sort ornament words into their vowel sound. This covers all the long and short vowels (no diphthongs) so it is a good way to wrap up the concept.

Click here to check it out on TPT.

I also designed a center for students to work on Au/Aw words. Students sort words that make the short o sound by their "rule": either au, aw, al, o, or ough. I designed it based on an activity from the Fountas and Pinnel book that I use for Phonics instruction.

Click here to look at it.


As I mentioned in earlier posts, I have a few other centers as well.


Pumpkin Pie Diphthong Sort. 

Students sort words that have the same vowel/diphthong sound as boat, cow, or toy.

Christmas Reflexive Pronoun Activity

Candy Cane Prefix/Suffix sort with -re and -ful

Phew! I gotta rest a bit before I get started on the centers for January!

St. Lucia Wreath Activity

I mentioned in my post about Christmas Around the World that we worked on Sweden on Wednesday. As part of our Sweden day, the students made St. Lucia head wreaths as part of the art block. They turned out really cute and they were super easy!

First I took sentence strips and cut them in half. I printed candle templates on white cardstock and leaf/holly templates on green construction paper. Click here for the candle templates and here for the leaf/holly template.

The Materials

Students colored the sentence strips and glued on the leaves and candles.

Once they were finished, I measured the strips and stapled them so they would fir their heads. (I took them off their heads to do the stapling obviously). They turned out very cute.

Christmas Reflexive Pronoun Activity (And a New Look!)

I am REALLY excited to have my blog designed by the fabulous Christi from Designs by Christi! She did an amazing job and put up with me being totally inarticulate about what I wanted. (I could picture it, but I did not have the right words to describe. Clearly I am not a designer). Plus she was amazingly fast! I can't believe how quickly she was able to design and install it for me. Thanks for working with me Christi! I am so pleased with the new look :)



Anyway, today I uploaded my newest activity onto TeachersPayTeachers. I created a reflexive pronoun activity for my December Christmas Theme, similar to the subject/object pronoun activity I created for my Halloween Literacy Centers. Students can either cut/paste or write-in the correct reflexive pronoun to complete the Christmas sentence. Aligned to the all important Common Core as well. Gotta have that.

Click here to check it out on TPT!

Christmas Around the World: Second Grade Style

I love Christmas. I don't understand those few who don't. It is such a delightful time!

When I was teaching K I did a Christmas around the world unit. It was based around crafts and read-alouds and my students loved it. This year I decided to adapt it for second grade and so far my students are LOVING it. I created a power point about the varying countries we're "going" to: Sweden, Italy, Germany, France, England, and Mexico. I have pictures of each country, a map showing where it is located, and slides discussing the different traditions.

 Check it out here on TPT!

Today they got their passports. On the first page I had them write their full name, address, and picture. I showed them my own passport as an example.

Each day as we got to a new country, the students "stamp" their passports with the flag of each country. They color the stamp themselves with an example on the board. Sweden was today, so that was a pretty easy one. England will be a bit of a challenge. The stamps are so small! (But adorable).  I got them from Sarah Cooley's scrapbook.

I love this unit so much I decided to link it up with 1..2..3..teach with me for her Christmas linky party. Check it out for more ideas for this fabulous holiday :)

Cyber Monday Sale on TeachersPayTeachers!

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! I hope everyone has had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving Day. And for those of you who were doing most of the cooking, thank you for making it a restful day for the rest of us ;)

Anyway, I am announcing that I am participating in TeacherPayTeacher's Cyber Monday sale! All of my items are on sale for 28% off! The sale is for 24 hours starting on Monday 11/26.  I just posted two new Holiday Literacy Centers, but most of my things are for the Fall, so you can stock up for next year.

Click here to get my store

By the way, check out my two newest literacy centers:

Pumpkin Pie Diphthong Word Sort

Peppermint Candy Prefix/Suffix Sort

Happy Holidays and Cyber Monday shopping!