Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is almost here!

I love spending a few days on this tradition. It's such a fun holiday teach, filled with tons of rich culture. 

Typically, for our non-fiction reading/research, I like to use Scholastic News (and yes, I keep all of the year's sets so I have the theme when I need them to fit a theme or subject), ReadWorks.org, PebbleGo, and Reading A-Z. 

Here are a few activities we get to throughout the week. 

We make a dragon puppet - using popsicle sticks. It's great as a stand-alone activity, or I actually like to glue it to the top of the compare/contrast writing activity for a little added flare. 

Another fun activity we do - write about the Chinese New Year and glue it to a flap book with the dragon attached to the ends. You could also use the page without a title to do a Sam and the Lucky Money summary (or any book) 

Sam and the Lucky Money is one of my go-to books. It actually used to be a 2nd Grade story in the Reading series. I don't teach from the reading series, but it was one of the stories I actually did.

There's a really cute directed draw from Art Hub for Kids, too - a lantern. My kids always love doing those drawings. I'll post the link in our Google Classroom and it can be a center activity, the drawing to a writing response, OR maybe it's an option for morning "tubs" if they're finished with all their work. 

You can grab these activities (and some more!) in my Chinese New Year Mini-Unit. 

Another cute activity we do is with the book, The Panda Problem...just because. It's SUCH a cute book! It was a Florida Sunshine State book and I read it during this week and I fell in love with it! 

We did a directed draw from - yep, you guessed it - Art for Kids Hub, 

Then we did a little writing to go with it. You can download the free writing page HERE. 

Have a great Wednesday!

163

Chinese New Year and a Recipe!

(Brace yourself, it's a long one!)

Does anyone else thinks there needs to be a "like" button under the comments people make?? haha...


Ok...YES!! I will STOP my complaining....PEOPLE....WE HAD RAIN TODAY!!! lol....
There I was, sitting cutting my (MANY) felt strips for my new craft I'm doing...

(my little flowers I'm making into a wreath - more to come on that when I'm finished with it.)

and I heard a noise......Honey - what IS that noise??? Wait...that was him snoring (taking a nap)...nevermind.

HA!! It was the rain!! yay!!!!

whew! Our yard will drink today!!

(mind you, it lasted for like an hour....lol. They say that if you don't like the weather in Florida, just wait 15 minutes...lol)

Sorry, now...onto school-related.

Today is Chinese New Year. I actually love teaching this holiday - all the activities that I usually do with it. One of my favorite things to do is in math; introducing geometry with this book....

It's a pretty long book, actually, when you're trying to do all the shapes in it with tangrams, so I usually spend all week doing it. 

Throughout the story, there are animals that he turns into, and the students can try to make them with their tangrams...see, like here, to get away from the alligator he turns into a duck (or goose??? lol), and the kids have to try and make that...it takes a WHILE, so I only do like 2 pages a day. That was with my 3rd graders, not sure about my 2nd graders. 

Our math series always comes with tangrams...but if not, you can copy off a set of tangram shapes for each kid...click the picture to grab a copy of the tangram printables.

I would also read this book...

and have them do a CUTE dragon that is like a foldable with a beginning, middle, and end. Unfortunately, I don't have that on my computer, it's in my actual file at school (I got it from MY intern teacher like 10 years ago. I tried doing a google search for it, BUT yeah right...lol. I'm the kind of person that if it's not on the first page of results, I give up! lol). I've also done some things with money activities...since that's what the book is about.

BUT...did you see the CUTE dragons over at Teacher Bits and Bobs??? They use shapes too!

I also go to our local Chinese restaurants and pillage their placemats. HA! You know...the ones with all the zodiac signs?? lol. We figure out what each kid's "animal" is and they do the tangram picture, gluing it down. Then under it they write about the best gift they have ever been given.

I'm a dog (hmmm....a female dog?? Really?? I'm NOT telling my husband that - I'll NEVER hear the end of it! ha!)

Yes, it's kind of like Christmas gift, but I really try to UMPH what happened in the book to try to get them to steer away from materialistic sort of things. 

There are a LOT more activities I do for Chinese New Year...but with out my files....sorry, I can't remember all of them. Boo. 

Now...onto the school-unrelated stuff...again...you like how I flip-flop?? :)

COOKING! lol

I made THIS last night!!

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie.....yummmoooooo!!!!

(I actually used DARK chocolate chips, 'cause well...I'm a bittersweet kinda gal!)

(AND today is National Pie Day...perfect!)

It helps a lot if you have a 2 year old helping you bake it!!  

Well, in this case, she was helping to clean...lol. Also, a DOG is really good at helping to clean up too!!

don't mind her hair...she just woke up from her nap, AND she has curly hair - it's ALWAYS wild!! lol

Ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (plus more for sprinkling)

2 1/2 cups flour

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 and grease a ten inch cast iron skillet with cooking spray.

Cream together the butter and the sugar until fluffy, then add the eggs one by one—beating after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add to the butter and sugar and blend lightly. Add the chocolate chips.

Press the cookie dough down into your greased skillet evenly and smooth the top with your hand. Sprinkle additional sea salt over the top.

Bake for 45 minutes until very puffy and golden.

Let pie cool completely before cutting. Serve alone or with ice cream!

mmmm.... put it in the pan (if you don't have a cast iron skillet, I'm sure a regular skillet that is oven-safe will do just fine!)

and Voila!!

You can go HERE to see the actual recipe....

Ok, I promise, next recipe I give you will be a HEALTHY one!! lol. I swear, I'm a health nut...but I have to have my sweets everyday too!!

Man, I can't WAIT to start running again!! Which reminds me...need to update my song lists...anyone have any good recommendations for running music???

And I leave you with today's photo of the day....

The one on the left is Autumn when she was 2 1/2 weeks old...and the one on the right is Brooklynn, 3 1/2 weeks old.  Ummm....can you spot the difference???

HA!

Ok, hope you stuck with me for that book of a post!!

19

Updates, more matter, and a book post

First off, here's today's photo of the day!

Baby B; wide eyed and taking in the world!

Also, WHY does everything come at once?!?!

Not only do we have hospital bills coming our way, but we also had to get new tires for my SUV, and hubby needs new tires for his truck, and now we need a new washer!! My washing machine is currently sitting in the garage in pieces...ah!! lol. So now, the question is....which kind to get?? Are you in love with your washing machine??? (yes, I get the irony of the question, because who ACTUALLY likes to do laundry?? Well, I like to do laundry, but I HATE folding it! lol)..

Ok, now, moving on to the updates....

Yesterday, I posted about  these Chinese lanterns...

Miss P (my sub/intern) did not find these on Pinterest - she made them up! She had them write what they would wish for when they release their lantern on the last day of the Chinese New Year...cute, huh??

And with these fortune cookies....

she just has them laying on my desk with some cgopsticks and in their "free time" they can go explore with them. Here is the Youtube video on how to make them.

And thanks, Reagan, for sending me to the rightful owner of these fabulous symmetry snowflakes! I KNEW I had seen them somewhere :)

These are from Cara over at First Grade Parade!

Now....for the State of Matter activity she did....

There's more to the book! For state of matter, they look for items in the sales ads that would fit that state, cut it out, and put it in their book! I love it!! Each day they do a different state of matter...

(she, of course, went through the ads first to cut out anything inappropriate for my little 2nd graders..lol!)

Love it!

Also, I finished my 2nd book!! 

Check out my post on The Best Endings!

41

It's a "Matter" of Chinese New Year!!

Hehe...like my Play on Words in the title??

Wait....ANOTHER post about school?? lol...They're few and far between....I thank you all for still hanging out with me while I'm on maternity leave :) Y'all are great!!

Again, these are from my sub, so I'm not sure where she got the ideas, but I'm sure they're from some of you out there!! If you see something that is your idea, let me know, and I'll put a link with the picture :)

symmetry snowflakes...used with the die cut machine

measurement activity. I would have loved to have seen this one in action!!

State of matter booklet...with cheerios.

I actually do something like that, but it's just a paper, not a booklet...

Click the picture to grab a copy (don't forget to leave a comment! Ya'll know how much I love getting them and responding to them)

And some activities for Chinese New Years!

These are super cool...as soon as she tells me how she did them and what she's going to do with them, I will let you know! lol...I know, I'm such a tease.

16