Grinch Day Recap with Freebies

I know, I know, tonight is New Year's Eve but my class and I had so much fun during our Grinch Day that I just couldn't wait another 300+ days to share all the fun we had with you.

Our holiday party this year was the day before we got out for break, meaning I had to come up with something to hold my Christmas crazed darlings attention for the whole day when all they we could think about was: Santa, Santa and more Santa.  The other teachers on my team gave me a Night Before Christmas coloring book and assured me that it would keep my darlings busy.  While I love me some Night Before Christmas, especially that one holiday special with the mice, I wanted to keep things fun but still educational.  Luckily, I was able to find so many wonderful ideas out in Blogland to save the day.

We began the day by reading the book and completing a graphic organizer from Deanna Jump's Grinch Mini Unit.  We discussed how characters can change and discussed how the Grinch changed throughout the story.  My personal favorite was in the beginning he was a bucket dipper and in the end he was a bucket filler.   Precious.

Then we created the Grinch similes that I saw on The First Grade Parade.  We brainstormed words that described how green the Grinch was, as well as words that described how small his heart was on the Smartboard together and then my students created their own similes. They loved this activity!

Click on the picture below to get your own copy of the prompt that I gave my students.  Don't worry, my typo is fixed. :)  I realized I accident had The Grinch's on my original while I was in the copy room and decided to just roll with it.  Their similes are still adorable anyways. 

The we created the Grinch's from Deanna's mini unit.  They came out so cute, even though some of my darlings had to tape their Grinch's together because they didn't listen hear the directions about folding the green paper before tracing and cutting out his face.

If you liked the paper my students wrote on in the pictures above, click on the picture of it below to download your own copy.

I love how unique and different their Grinch's were.  I especially loved the long eyelashes and lipgloss in the picture on the right.  

After lunch and recess, we continued our day of fun by doing Grinch story problems!

Source

I loved the concept of Made for First Grade's Grinch Problem Solving book, but since we just spent weeks doing double digit addition and subtraction, I needed to modify the problems a bit.  I created double digit addition and subtraction problems and it worked out perfectly!  Email me at storiesfromsecond@gmail.com if you would like a copy of the story problems I created for this great activity.   

I used a paper cutter to cut the problem solving squares to solve time.  I just put them in the back of the room and my students grab more as they finished the problems.  I also had the manipulatives included in Deanna's unit available for my early finishers to create growing, shrinking and repeating patterns. 

Obviously the last pattern is repeating, my friend just forgot to label it. :)

We finished the day by watching the cartoon version and passing out their Grinch dust. 

I wanted to give my students the Grinch licked candy canes I saw floating around Blogland but I could never find any candy canes packages that were all green and I had a hard time justifying shelling out $2.99 for a twelve pack of candy canes that had only 6 green candy canes.  Of course, today at Meijer I found some. 

Go figure.  The one grocery store I typically never go to had them.  Go figure.  

Here's a helpful tip, if you give your students Grinch dust (a.k.a. green glitter) make sure the bag doesn't have any holes.  My sweet grandma assembled them for me and kept wondering why glitter ended up all over the table she used.  Turns on the cute little bags we used didn't seal tightly at the bottom of the bag.  I got the idea for the poem from The First Grade Parade, click on the picture below to save your own copy for next year. 

I hope you enjoyed my recap of our Grinch Day as much my class did. My kiddos kept saying how much fun they were having and one little darling wished that "everyday could be Grinch Day."  It was great day of fun and learning and one I fully expect do with my class every year.

What was your favorite thing you do/did with your class during the holiday season?