Best gift of Christmas, Our Visit to Mexico, and Tree Measurements

Before I start, can I just share with you one my favorite Christmas pictures we did this year?? One of my good friends is a photographer...

How stinkin' cute is this??? I love it! 

Now onto school stuff. (I hope you don't mind that I always put in a little personal tidbit in my posts...I just like to share -ha!)

Over at The First Grade Parade, I saw her Best Gift Post and I decided that I needed to do that! lol....So, we read Auntie Claus, which is a great book to talk about the true meaning of Christmas. 

When I taught 3rd grade, I did a big ole writing lesson with it, but my 2nd graders couldn't handle that just yet, so I thought this activity would be perfect for it..... didn't they come out cute?!?

I used Tales of a Teacherista's Writing Pack for their writing paper. 

Ok, so this next one???? How sad does this make you??? I just had to give her a hug (yes, I gave a student a hug!! Shhhh!!! Don't tell on me!)

I love the hot cocoa part in this one...

And today we for our Christmas Around the World,

 we traveled to Mexico and learned some of their Christmas traditions. The other day we traveled to Israel, if you missed that post click {HERE} to see it.  

I am quite partial to Mexico because I actually lived there for some time in Oaxaca. It was a study abroad where I lived with a family and went to language and cultural school. It was so awesome!! 

We read this book .... and talked about why poinsettias are their plant of choice. If you don't know, it's because everyone was giving gifts to the King, and one girl was too poor to give a gift to celebrate Jesus' brithday, so she went outside and grabbed one of her plants (poinsettias), and gave that to him. The King loved it so much that they became his plant of choice.

(mmmm....made me want a tamale!!)

Then we made our poinsettias. Now, I've made these before with tracers and such, and they came out cute! But, as I've said before....and before....and before...they lack art skills, so I'm trying to get them to do different modes of art to get their brains thinking outside of the "tracer" box...you know??

They just used their hands....some had an easier time keeping their palms in the middle of the paper than others, but she made it work! I particularly like the veins in the leaves :)

Tomorrow I'm hoping we can visit Germany! I still haven't done their gifts for their parents....ahhhh!!! What am I going to do?? I haven't a CLUE! lol

AND for math today, we did measurement trees.  I had them practice measuring with an inch ruler, they had to label (with a tag!) how many inches each "branch" was. I think I've actually seen someone else out there do this too! Great minds I tell ya :)

Ok, that didn't take too long.  Tomorrow, hopefully I'll get to show you our take on the Elf Application. 

Feel free to leave a comment, I love hearing from you!

Happy Teaching!