Holiday E-Books are Here!

If you haven't noticed by now, I love freebies and great deals. That's one of the reasons we post freebies every Friday and post about great back to school sales in the fall. It makes me feel good to get the most for my money and make my dollars last a long time.

This week I have not just a great deal for you, but a HUGE deal! It's time for the annual TPT Holiday E-Book! There are four holiday e-books that are divided by grade level. Each book has been carefully assembled and contains 50+ pages filled with free teacher resources and holiday tips. Books were created using pages submitted generously by Teachers Pay Teachers sellers.

With just a few short weeks until the winter holiday season & school breaks, I think everyone could use a break with these books.

If you download the grade 3-6 book, check out my freebie offered in the book, my free Christmas Holiday Write & Draw!
  
2013 Winter Holiday Tips and Freebies for PK-K  


2013 Winter Holiday Tips and Freebies for Grades 1-2

2013 Winter Holiday Tips and Freebies for Grades 3-6

2013 Winter Holiday Tips and Freebies for Grades 7-12

I also want to thank the TPT sellers that took the time to put these books together. Please thank them by leaving feedback for the book you enjoy! 

If you haven't checked out the 2012 books yet, be sure to do so for more holiday freebies!

Join me in a Facebook Frenzy!

Starting Friday, December 6th I'm going to participate in a Facebook Frenzy! Many TPT sellers are participating and each will offer an exclusive freebie that cannot be downloaded anywhere else for free! I won't reveal what item I will be giving away just yet. Like my Facebook page to be alerted when the frenzy starts!

Cyber Monday Teachers Pay Teachers Sale! Save 28%!

This Monday and Tuesday, December 2nd and 3rd, 2013 Teachers Pay Teachers is having a site wide sale! Most sellers, including myself and Etc will be listing their stores at 20% off. Using code CYBER, TPT will give you an additional 10% off for a total of 28%! Site wide sales like this are sparse so if you have been thinking about getting something now is the time!

For fun seasonal activities and Spanish and high school English lessons, check out Etc's store.

For fun elementary level seasonal math and literacy activities, games and art lessons check out my (Lesson Lady) store.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lesson Lady and I at One Less Headache want to wish you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be taking a short break this week from writing our regular posts and will pick up after Thursday with some great deals to offer you!  

Find more Freebies on Facebook!

If you enjoy freebies, you may want to check out my Facebook page. A few times a week I post freebies there that most of the time I don't have time to share here. I also have a special promotion that will be coming up in the next two weeks that will be a great help to those that love teacher freebies.

I am thankful for each 'like'!

Fabulous Friday Freebies: 100 Holiday Classroom Ideas Worth Reading

1. Make bake-less Christmas cookies with your class.  These are simple, yummy and could be adapted to any season.
2. Buy some pipe cleaners, googley eyes and red pom-pons.  Rent a movie and make some healthy reindeer snacks to munch on.
3. Is it snowing yet?  Take the kiddies outside and play snow games.  Here are seven great ideas.
4. Make a candy turkey.  They are super cute and a big hit with all ages.
5. Martha Stewart has a high quality photo gallery of 32 easy Christmas crafts.
6. Have students research how Christmas is celebrated around the world.
7. Encourage your students to commit random acts of kindness.
8. Have some fun with holiday puns.
9. Create your own ornaments.  Here are 8 great ornament ideas for older kids.
10. Who doesn't love to get their hands full of paint once in a while?  You can choose between 15 great ideas and have your students make hand and footprint Christmas crafts.  
11. Have your students make a piñata.  That is one of the coolest group projects that I remember doing as a kid and have done since becoming a teacher with my students.
12. Download boardgames, word searches and 25 other free Christmas activities to build excitement as we count down day to Christmas.
13. Do your kids like to color?  There are coloring pages galore online and about 50 Christmas coloring pages on this site.

Make it: Easy Baked Banana Oatmeal for Busy Folks

When school started back in session in August, I was overwhelmed as a new mom with everything that had to be done in the morning before leaving the house. Kudos to all the working moms out there! It was much more demanding and hectic than I thought it would be.

One thing that helped me get ready in a timely fashion was having things done the night before. I started packing both breakfast and lunch at least the night before so it was easy to grab. I looked for recipes that would be easy to make on Sunday and able to divide into five parts so I could have breakfast for the whole week ready to go.

Although we normally focus on educational materials, I thought I would share this recipe with you since it helped me have something healthy and tasty to eat each morning and made my school day start a little better.

As a bonus, this recipe would work for all sorts of diets such as gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, dairy free and low sugar!

I adapted this recipe from Sweet Roots.

Easy Baked Banana Oatmeal

3 bananas
2 cups oats
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds (I never left these out but I think the recipe would be fine without them too.)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup liquid sweetener such as maple syrup or even a Da Vinci syrup (I tried one time with sugar free hazelnut and it was good!)
Season to taste with cinnamon and salt
1 can coconut milk - both light and heavy work okay for this

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8x8 inch pan.

2. Slice the bananas and layer them along the bottom of the pan. If you wish, you can also save some bananas for on the top of the oatmeal.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together the oats, flax seeds, baking powder, liquid sweetener and vanilla extract. Add salt and/or cinnamon if you would like. I enjoyed this with cinnamon!

4. Press the mixture over the bananas into the pan. If you have more bananas to add to the top of the oatmeal, slice them on top now.

5. Pour the coconut milk over the top of the oatmeal. Don't worry if it doesn't soak in right away.

6. Bake for 40 minutes. I have enjoyed this hot or cold and it's a great amount for the whole week!  Typically I made this on Sunday and divided it into containers for the whole week after it cooled so each morning I could just grab breakfast and go.

Hope this recipe can help make your mornings a little easier.