teachersbrain, Author at Teacher's Brain

Ugly Christmas Sweaters For Elementary

November 19, 2021 teachersbrain Distance Learning

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas trees, tinsel, ornaments, and my favorite trend, ugly Christmas sweaters!

These are becoming more and more popular every year and I always loved it when my students would wear their own to school. Nothing brings the holiday spirit to school quite like a garish holiday sweater. The students think it’s hilarious!

As any teacher knows, when we include things students love in our lesson plans, engagement in classwork goes up. That being said, I knew it would be perfect if I combined that love of Ugly Christmas sweaters with learning.

So I created this Ugly Christmas Sweater Writing Activity!

This activity is guaranteed to be a huge hit at Christmas time. Students get to design their very own ugly Christmas sweaters. They get to let their silliness and creativity fly with this creative activity which always brings lots of smiles and giggles.

This activity is completely digital. Which makes it so easy to do! Students can complete it at school on their computers or at home while distance learning. These interactive Google Slides are editable so you and your students can customize it however you like.

Once they are ready to design, just copy and paste the movable parts to create their sweater. It comes with 14 backgrounds to choose from.

After that, use the 6 included slides to allow students to brainstorm, organize their thoughts, and write a story about their Christmas sweater. This can be a narrative, persuasive, or opinion paper about their sweater.

You can even make it extra fun by organizing a vote to pick the ugliest Christmas sweater!

If you don’t have the ability to do this activity digitally with your students, don’t worry. It comes with a print version so you can easily adapt it to your needs.

Check it out here!

Do you love ugly Christmas sweaters? Let me know in the comments!

Christmas Ornament Craft and Door Decorating

November 18, 2021 teachersbrain Door Decorating

Are you looking for some simple activities to help your classroom get into the holiday spirit? Use these worksheets to design a door to show Santa on Vacation, make a decorative wall, window, or bulletin board display. Students will create their own Christmas bulbs and write to a prompt.

Christmas Ornaments

First, grab this adorable free printable for students to design their own personalized ornament. Add any art tools with the printable ornaments to make a literacy center. Students will create their own ornament. Included in this download are primary and intermediate writing prompts. Students will write about working for an ornament company with the task of designing an ornament that captures the holiday spirit. Combine the writing with the ornament for a fantastic wall display.

Door Decorating

Door decorations are a must in our schools during the holidays. We always scramble to find something amazing yet, easy to create due to the busy nature of the holidays. I won a door decorating contest. It is always exciting if there is a cash prize involved!

Here is a simple door decoration with Santa “Gone To The Beach” on a well-deserved vacation. The free ornaments used on the palm tree add that extra holiday touch.

Door Decor Steps

Print out the Santa clothes, color them, and use a string to hang the clothes with clothespins. Add some sand dollars for that extra beach feeling. This door decoration includes palm tree parts and the beach sign.

Grab the free Christmas ornament center below.

You can grab the easy-to-use Santa’s Gone to the Beach Door Decor resource HERE.

Holiday Door Decorations for School

Want to look at some more holiday doors? Check out this blog post!

Disguise A Turkey Digital Thanksgiving Activity

November 12, 2021 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers, Thanksgiving in Kindergarten

November is such a great time of year. Turkeys everywhere, delicious food, and the start of Christmas decor!

As a teacher, it is especially fun because you get to do lots of turkey and Thanksgiving-themed activities with the kiddos.

Students love making pilgrim hats, completing this Thanksgiving escape room, creating turkey headbands, and even performing a Thanksgiving play!

These are all amazing for increasing student engagement throughout November, but one of my favorite activities was always the Disguise a Turkey activity.

Every year, I would have students disguise a naked turkey so it wouldn’t get eaten on Thanksgiving Day. It’s so fun! Students are sent home with the turkey printable and work with their families to come up with creative disguises. We got some cool disguised turkeys! Then students would practice their creative writing skills by writing about them.

It was a hit! But then the pandemic hit, and I was so sad that students wouldn’t be able to do this project. However, I found a way to use Google Slides to provide a digital version with a printables so students would never have to miss out on this fun activity.

So now students can disguise their turkey while distance learning!

This Thanksgiving activity is available on Google Slides

These interactive, editable slides make it easy to have students copy and paste movable parts to DISGUISE a TURKEY!

After coming up with the perfect disguise, they get to write a narrative opinion story about their turkey.

I love this activity because it is not only educational, but it allows students to engage in some creative holiday fun. They’ll get 9 backgrounds to choose from, 6 slides with movable parts, 5 slides for students to brainstorm, organize thoughts, and write a story about their disguised turkey, and black and white slides for students to digitally or handwrite stories.

You can even add some animation and music to it while in Present mode! Afterward, you can print these out to decorate your classroom or make a slideshow so everyone can see it virtually.

Check out the video tutorial here!

Desk Pets: A Classroom Management System Students Will Love!

November 5, 2021 teachersbrain Classroom Behavior Management, Teaching Tips

Among the many academic subjects we teach our students, we also teach them so much more that goes beyond that. They learn how to follow rules, make friends, be kind, be responsible, respectful, make good choices, and so much more.

Positive reinforcement is a great way to celebrate this behavior. It will encourage the behavior to continue when students are doing a good job. This can be done in many ways but a good classroom management strategy is a fantastic place to start. You can read about one of my favorite strategies, Blurt Beans, here.

With a good classroom management system, you will not only show students the consequences of their actions when they don’t make the right choice but also encourage and celebrate them when they show that they are responsible, respectful, kind, etc.

If you are looking for the perfect system for your classroom that will get your students excited and motivated to continue to do well, you have to try out Desk Pets.

Desk Pets are a unique classroom management system that will reward students for their good behavior by giving them “desk pets” to keep on their desks and accessories to go along with them.

The desk pet is an animal eraser. You can read with it, write with it, or even play with it at designated times of the day.

Here’s how to implement the Desk Pet system into your classroom

To start, students will earn Desk Pet Dollars from your classroom when they are doing a good job, following the rules, helping others, staying on task, showing respect, being responsible, etc. After they earn their dollars, they then get to spend it to adopt a desk pet of their choosing!

The desk pet gets to hang out with them at their desk. In order to buy habitats, supplies, and other accessories that will keep the desk pet “happy”, students will need to continue to earn more Desk Pet Dollars. This provides the incentive for them to continue making good choices even after they got to pick out a pet.

Later on in the year, students can even have the option to give their desk pets a permanent home by taking them home (if you choose to).

When students are not following rules, they may be charged a Desk Pet fee that they have to pay using their earned dollars or their pet may be taken back to the adoption center.

Students love this system! They can share with their friends what animal they received and what accessories they have to go along with it. This inspires more good behavior because students will want what their friends have.

If you want to get started with Desk Pets, you can do that free with my starter kit here.

It comes with the rules you need to get started. You’ll get an adoption application, a zoo habitat along with instructions on how to set it up, Desk Pet signs, and an editable page for writing prompts.

If you want the full resource, you can check that out here. It comes with all of the printables you need. You’ll get behavior contracts, Venn diagrams, pet store price lists, Desk Pet journals, and more!

This will definitely be a hit for your students, and it will definitely make you a memorable teacher!