A Kindergarten Smorgasboard of Christmas Magic!

Hello Christmas break!!!! Who's with me? Who slept in today? Who forgot to turn their alarm off? OH...that was me. TRUE STORY! GRRRR.
I hope everyone gets to enjoy their time off. Take naps. Eat a lot. Take naps. Play on Pinterest. Read. Take naps. Did I mention naps?? But seriously ya'll...relax!!!!!!
I have to share all of our holiday magic from the past 3 weeks!!! We were busy busy busy little 'staches. Gingerbread...reindeer...Polar Express...parties...and giving back....like, seriously, don't we have the best jobs ever?!?!

We spent 2 weeks with the gingerbread man and his friends. We read all kinds of great gingerbread stories. We created a story chart to compare and contrast all of the stories. We made gingerbread men in the oven. We wrote about the gingerbread man. And of course, we made gingerbread man cookies. And it's just not a normal week in our classroom if Mr. Greg doesn't dress up in a costume!!

To see a whole blog post about this gingerbread writing activity, just click the picture!

We also used gingerbread men to help us practice subtraction with word problems!!

We made the gingerbread man in the oven! The 'staches had a blast with this little art project! Click the picture to see a post with more details on this fun project!
And of course, we got to decorate gingerbread man cookies! The mister made the cookies and the 'staches had a blast decorating and eating the cookies!
People, I have these 'staches so well trained that this was the quote of the little girl standing in the back:
"MESSY IS FUN!"
They so get it!!!!!!

Gingerbread pirates! CHECK!

Of course there were lots of Christmas/holiday centers for literacy and math!!!!

This year I did something new and LOVED IT! I can't wait to do it again next year. We did reindeer research and became reindeer experts!!! Each 'stache made a reindeer research journal and recorded all of their learning! We had so much fun AND...wait for it....LEARNED SO MUCH ABOUT REINDEER!!! Fun...learning....research....writing... BAM! NAILED IT!

We made these adorable Santa windsocks. We had so much fun. The 'staches kept trying to wear them as masks and hats! hehe (FREEBIE! Just click on the picture!)

We made these adorable gifts for our our parents. Adorable. Easy. Cheap. Seriously, 30 minutes and about $15 for the entire thing. You can click the picture to see a post about these gifts. (These would be great for mother's day or an end of the year gift too!)

Poinsettias! These always turn out so pretty. And this year it led to an epic glitter fight. Allegedly started by Mr. Greg. Allegedly.

We read Moosletoe and made our cute Christmas moose.
And finally, we ended our time together with Polar Express Day. Pajamas, pillows, popcorn and hot chocolate. A perfect ending to an amazing first half of the school year!

The highlight of our 3 week holiday celebration was this. My class was invited to a local homeless shelter where my 'staches got to give back! Amazon donated $5,000 dollars worth of presents to the shelter and my 'staches got to open the gifts and give them to the shelter. It was so amazing to hear my 'staches be so excited to help others. And seriously...is that not the world's largest Amazon box. I want that at my house!

Yeah...and Mr. Greg wore the best. ugly. sweater. ever. Period.