Alphabet PAR-TAY! (All-Photos Edition)

Meet **Snowflake**

 Santa sent us a scout elf from the North Pole to keep an eye on things while he makes out his naughty and nice list.  Both classes took a vote and decided her name should be Snowflake. We hope to see her everyday until Christmas break, so long as we can remember the one and only rule - DON'T TOUCH THE ELF! 
   Should anyone touch her, she will lose her magic. You see, every night Snowflake flies back to the North Pole to report all she's seen and heard to Santa. Then she returns every morning to a new spot in the classroom before the children arrive. So far, she's been found on a shelf, playing Uno with some turkeys, and getting into mischief with Mrs. Taylor's stickers.  I have a feeling there's a lot more mischief to come....Check back here every Friday for a weekly Elf Sightings Report. (By the way, if you're looking for the Thanksgiving Song, I'm having some trouble getting it uploaded, but will hopefully get it figured out).

 

Pilgrims, Indians, and Turkeys...Oh My!

Ms. Groom (my student teacher) taught the students all about the very first Thanksgiving this week.  They learned how the pilgrims came to America in the Mayflower and settled under some extremely harsh conditions.  The students wrote in their journals about what they would have to do if they were pilgrim boys and pilgrim girls to help their mothers and fathers. They also wrote/drew about how the pilgrims came to America. I tell the students to draw a picture first and use as much detail as they can.  Once they've done this, we've taught them to label special parts of their pictures.  When they can express themselves sufficiently through drawing, we encourage them to use letters and words to tell about their picture. The students use resources around the room to help with spelling (most of the time, key words can be found written on the board) and they also have to segment (break down) words into their individual letter sounds.  We do not expect perfect spelling. What is most important right now is that the students can recognize the beginning and ending sounds of words.  Anything in the middle is a bonus!



Here, a student shows with a drawing how
 the pilgrims made it to America,
 including details about the harsh
 conditions.  She also wrote a sentence to
describe her picture.   



Here, a student shows a pilgrim girl planting seeds in the garden.  The picture shows some good details and  even a label of "girl." This student will soon begin working on how to use many words to tell about her picture.



For our weekly art project, the students got to make their own Native American "pouch" with a brown paper bag and a black marker (they LOVE markers)! Ms. Groom showed them some examples of Native American symbols and the students got to tell a story with the symbols of their choice.  

 

 We wrapped up the week with a very special guest! Amy Neel (Riley's mom) is a Native American from the Osage tribe. She grew up on a reservation in Pawhuska Oklahoma.  She brought lots of great visual displays such as clothing, pictures, and a feather fan for the children to see and touch.  She  taught them how to say hello and the steps to her tribe's traditional dance!  The students thought this was WAY COOL!  In the video below, you will see the morning class performing the special dance and leave with the message "hohwah" which means 'hello' in her tribe's native language.



Amy dressed Riley in her special ceremonial shaw to show the class.



 



Kaydence gets a feel of the buckskin mocassins.



 

We, of course, had centers as usual this week too.  Ms. Groom made fun Thanksgiving shape mats for the students to sort and match different shapes in the math games center.  In the block center, the students got to experience a tiny glimpse of pilgrim life, as they played with Lincoln logs for the first time. And in word work, they strung letter beads on string to make words.



Allison matches shapes in the math game center



Jace uses the letter of the week to make "ZAP" in the word work center



Clayton gets the hang of building with Lincoln logs.



And, by the way, here's the turkeys we made last week on display in our hallway. 

An End to October

We wrapped up October with Red Ribbon Week in which the students got to come to school with crazy hair, crazy socks, boots, and jeans.  Our afternoon class really liked the crazy hair day! That same week, the students learned how to tell real from make-believe and we read lots of silly, spooky books about Halloween. In the word work center, the students sorted letters into their matching jack-o-lantern and in math games, the students made picture patterns with attribute blocks. My PM class made some leaf animals and both classes arranged random shapes to create their own monsters. We put these on display out in our hallway just before the Garth Haunted House. 

 

 This past week we celebrated Halloween, can you tell?

 We did some learning, though too!  In math games, the students played a special Halloween edition of Memory. The students had to find number matches that were printed on fun Halloween pictures. In the number work center, the students worked on adding up to ten using our counting bears and ten frames. In word work, the students put together 3 letter (CVC) word puzzles. 

We ended the week by making some beautful turkeys to prepare for our upcoming unit on the first Thanksgiving. The students had to cut out their own feathers and choose what kind of pattern they wanted  and glue them in place. The kiddos enjoyed this activity very much and their terrific turkeys are on display in our hallway!