December Daily-Dec. 5

Papers and embellishment by Shabby Princess

December Daily-D4

Nighttime. Prayers. Reading books while laying under the warm covers snuggled up with Miss Emma is about as blissful as a perfect night can be. "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed" echoes in my brain. Emma's sweet giggles as I once again read that Momma Monkey had to call that doctor to help. As she turns the pages of her book, I continue to read. When I finish, she closes the books and asks to say her goodnight prayers. "God Bless, Nana, Papa, Gracie, Uncle Brandon, Mommy and Daddy. A-men." I grab her life size Elmo doll and "baby." Tuck them all in. "Mommy, Tiss pwease," she says. I lean in kiss her goodnight and go to turn out the light. "Sweet dreams, Mommy." "You too, baby girl."

These are the moments I cherish. These moments won't last forever, how I wish they would.

Dec. Daily Day 3

Papers and snowflake button from Shabby Princess Holiday Sampler. Third paper embellishment and light paper from Jessica Sprauge. Font: Lynnelle (my handwriting turned into a font)

Journaling:
Today I could feel the cool air finally descending on Oklahoma. Even so my girls wanted to play outside. While taco soup was simmering I had an opportunity to watch my kiddos play outside. Sliding down the slide, "Ta da!" Gracie says. Emma coming in shutting the door. Gracie opening it and Emma yelling, "BOO! I GOTCHA!" Today I am thankful. There are days that are so stressful that I forget about the todays. The todays that no one is hurt, no one is pulling hair, just playing like sisters. Today.

December Daily D2

Scrapbooking Papers by Jessica Sprague.

This post was inspired as we came home from school. They immediately wanted the tree on! Ahh....memories.

December Daily Challenge-d1

Time to start my December Daily. I am so excited to be documenting my holidays! This layout and papers are from Jessica Sprauge's Holiday In Hand online class last week. I edited pieces of it to fit my need. The pictures are of my tree and my girls' stockings. As we started to decorate the tree I began to tell my kids my favorite Christmas memory and Day 1 was created.

December Daily Challenge

As my students prepare to start their new genre of writing-essay. I am challenging them to write Daily in the month of December. I got the idea from Ali Edwards. I sent a letter home to parents in regards to the expectations. I am really phrasing this more as a slice of life, but calling it December Daily Challenge. In March, we will do this again with the Slice of Life Challenge.

December Daily

The parent letter below also went home. I used some of Calkin's letter to parents and add more to it.

Essay Unit Letter

I will be writing alongside my writers. So the blog will be very active in the month of December. I am also challenging myself to take a picture a day that month. If you would like ideas to get this started you can also visit Jessica Sprague's site.

Moving In Time

Today I taught my group of writers the art of moving in time to help the reader understand the meaning of the piece (idea from Raising the Quality of Narrative Writing by Calkins). However, I used a fabulous text Sweet, Sweet Memory. I also timelined the book to show how the piece moved from the present to the past and to the future at different points.

Lesson Plan

My writer's are wrapping their third small moment by "Putting Said to Bed" tomorrow and then going through the final stages of writing onto publishing. Once again I have nothing but wonderful things to say about this process. When my piece is finished I will post here.