A New Version of an Old Favorite (Freebies!)

I love "The Little Red Hen". I had the Little Golden Book version as a child and I loved it - my mom read it to me often and I relished the fairness of the Hen and her chicks getting to eat the bread since they did all the work. So, imagine my delight the other day when I was browsing our library and found this:

The Little Red Elf lives with a penguin, a reindeer and a rabbit in a toy workshop. Unfortunately they are lazy and won't help her care for the tree, decorate it or bake cookies. But, of course, they want to open the presents that Santa leaves under the tree! The best part is that each present is a stuffed red hen! Of course, if you haven't red the original, the ending will take some explanation, so you'll want to read both versions and do a comparison of the two stories after you read them. Here is a Venn Diagram for the two stories as well as an adjective bubble map for The Little Red Elf.
Compare and Contrast Little Red Elf
Little Red Elf Adjectives

Okay, this next one is not even remotely holiday related but, I thought it was awesome. It's the 10 Little Pigs by Hooked on Phonics. It's great as a counting video for kindergarten, as an addition video for 1st grade and also awesome for comparing to the original 3 little pigs story!

How cute is that?!

Alright, more Christmas stuff! When I was growing up, we listened to a lot of folk music. One of my favorites was Roger Whittaker, and his Christmas album is on my top 5 albums to listen to this time of year!

One song that I love to play in class is "Darcy the Dragon". It's about a dragon who wants to buy his friends Christmas presents but keeps setting fire to the village accidentally when he talks. I recently found the song on youtube, so if you don't have the cd you can still play it in your classroom. I made a listening sheet to go with it:
Darcy the Dragon


In January I am going to be doing a Penguin Unit and a Snowman Unit (we usually don't get snow until the end of January here in OK so that's when I do my Snowmen unit). Do you have an idea for a January unit? I'm always looking for new ideas and I'd love to hear what units you use to kick off the New Year!