Cyber Monday TpT Gift Card Giveaway!

I'm excited to give you the gift of time this holiday season with a chance to win a $10 TpT gift card!

Use your gift card to stuff your cart full of goodies that get you through the winter months, so you have more time for family!

Plus, you can maximize your $10 by using it in the upcoming TpT Sitewide Sale on Monday, November 28 through Tuesday, November 29!  Save up to 28% using the code: CYBER2016  

Want more chances to win?  Just visit a few of my blogging buddies to enter for another chance at a $10 TpT Gift Card.  If you visit everyone in our blog hop, you could win up to $260 in TpT Gift Cards.  Sounds good, right?  

So how do you enter?  Read about my Top 5 Winter Activities and then complete the Rafflecopter entry.  Be sure to click on the button at the end of this post to be directed to the next post in the hop.  

Hurry!  The giveaway ends at 11:59 PM (EST) on Monday 11/28.  The winner will be notified via e-mail by noon (EST) on Tuesday, so you will have time to fill up your TpT cart with lots of goodies before the end of the sale!

STEM Challenges are a perfect way to spend those days leading up to winter break or to get the wheels turning on those first days back from break.  Some of my favorite winter STEM activities include:

The Marshmallow Challenge asks students to build the tallest, freestanding structure out of spaghetti sticks, tape, and string within a certain amount of time.  The tower must remain standing once time expires with a marshmallow stuck on the top of the structure.  

This is a great introductory STEM lab that works for all grades.  Read more about the Marshmallow Challenge in this blog post.  

Another STEM Challenge perfect for December is the Jingle All The Way Christmas STEM Challenge.  Students must design a sleigh that is lightweight and sturdy out of common household items that can tolerate the weight of the many presents Santa has to deliver all over the world. 

Students work through the STEM Design Process to create a prototype with limited materials and time, test the prototype, and troubleshoot to enhance the original prototype to yield better results.

Read more about Jingle All The Way in this blog post.

Help Elsa decorate her castle with beautiful homemade snowflakes using pipe cleaners and powdered laundry detergent (Borax).  

Let It Grow! Snowflake Science Activity allows students to have a lot of fun while practicing their scientific inquiry skills.  Lab activities are differentiated and available for Grades 3-5 and 5-8. 

Depending on your grade level, you may want to allow the students to conduct this in several small groups or work together as a class.  Teachers who opt for the whole class activity can always select student volunteers to come up to the front of the class to help with the different steps of the lab.

This resource also includes a detailed lesson plan and corresponding PowerPoint or SMART Board presentation that provides a lot of visuals to help both the teacher and student conduct a relatively smooth science lab!

The 3-5 Grade Handout features choices that scaffold students' thinking when determining a scientific method, making a prediction, and forming a conclusion.

If I Were an Elf Who Lived on a Shelf Narrative Writing Prompt will create lots of discussion in your elementary classroom - especially if you have a classroom elf or many of your students have an elf at home!

Students are provided with a graphic organizer which helps them organize their thoughts into a sequential story with a closing. Once the students have completed their brainstorming, then they can transfer the information to a final story board. 

This would look awesome on a bulletin board or in the hallway!

Do you know those days when you have shorter gaps of time to fill before or after a holiday assembly?   Would You Rather - Christmas Edition - is the perfect class activity to have in your teacher toolkit for those types of situations.  Just open up this game and automatically engage your students!  

This resource has 30 fun, Christmas-themed Would You Rather scenarios. The slides can be projected on a white board, projection screen, or SMART Board through PowerPoint. The teacher (or a student) can read the scenario on the slide. The students will then show what they would prefer to do in the scenario by moving to the side of the room indicated by the arrow on the slide. 

Make sure to ask follow up questions after each Would You Rather scenario to promote the development of a learning community!

If you are a fan of "The Night Before..." stories by Natasha Wing, then these sequencing activities will be a fantastic companion piece to these books.  The Night Before the Night Before Christmas is a hilarious book to add to your collection as your get closer to winter break.

This resource includes two worksheets: one includes illustrated cards that represents the key events that occurred in the story and the second includes numbered boxes to help students paste the cards into the correct order as the events happened in the story.

(Note: This resource is currently being updated to include color and black and white versions plus an interactive whole class answer check activity as mentioned below.  Debut date is 12/1/16!)

Also included is an Interactive Whole Class Answer Check Sequencing Activity in both PowerPoint and SMART Notebook formats. Students will press or click on the illustrated card they believe is the next in order. The students will receive instant feedback to either receive another try to select the correct answer or to move on to the next step of the activity.

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