What I'm doing for Christmas

We've been busy in my Title I class recently, and even though I'm missing out on all the fun crafts and activities that I did/would do as a classroom teacher, I've still been able to fit in some fun literacy centers.

I've also had the pleasure of pushing into the same 3rd grade class every day for the past week and a half to work with them on Daily 5/CAFE lessons. That's been so much fun to me! I got to help train on all of that this summer, but I never got a good opportunity to do it since we only piloted it last year and I was out on maternity leave for part of that time. Tomorrow will be my last day to push in though, but I think we're going to do two activities with the Polar Express for those two days. We're already working on Read to Self for Daily 5, and they will hopefully be able to start Read to Someone next week. In CAFE, we added Activate Prior Knowledge (where I taught them my favorite word: schema!), Check for Understanding, Find Good Fit Books (with IPICK), and Use the Pictures. Today We're going to do Back up and Reread. They're so excited about it!

Now back to Christmas:

I said I've been doing literacy centers, and it's been so much fun. The kids remember the format for most of the centers from my Thanksgiving pack that we did. So there's less set up and explaining required. I just focus on the new centers to talk them through. Fifth grade has already started them, and I'm noticing some improvement. 3rd and 4th will start either today or next week.

With my younger kids, I focused on the book The Great Christmas Crisis by Kim Norman.

If you remember this post, she was the author we had come visit back in early November. Anyway, I created a packet based on the book.

It had two little activities that I used as centers (one for sequencing and one game using words from the book). There's also a cute writing activity that I may let them do tomorrow. I'll even let them color and decorate their elves if they finish the writing! Here's a sample of that.

I have also completed my winter literacy centers. These are the same format as the Christmas ones, just without the Polar Express sequencing. 4 comprehension centers and 4 word-knowledge.

What are you doing in your class right now? Or are you allowed to do Christmas-y activities?