Well this was a whirlwind of a week. More MAP testing, shopping at Santa's Workshop, PM class cancellation, fire drill, and, oh yea, it was too cold to go out for recess and the gym wasn't available for PE classes. To say that we were all going a little nuts would be the understatement of the year. But we rolled with the punches and had some great learning experiences anyway. We explored our 5 senses this week with a different 'experiment' everyday. We started with our sense of sight. The students had to call out a sight word on the screen. As I erased each sight word, a little bit more of the Christmas picture behind them was revealed. It was a picture of Santa!
On Tuesday, we explored our sense of hearing. Each student was given a (very old) metal film canister with unknown objects inside. They had to shake them and find their sound match. Some students had jingle bells inside, some had ornament hooks, candies, beads, etc. They sat down with the partner they thought matched their sound and then I revealed what was inside of each one. It was pretty tricky! (Unfortunately, the PM class didn't get to do this activity, since their class was cancelled due to the snow. But I hope to have time to do it with them next week).
The next day was about our sense of smell. We went on a "Smell Hunt." First, I let each child smell a jar of cinnamon. Then I told them there were hidden objects in the room with the same smell and to use their sniffers to find them.
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| It wasn't the crayons...... |
It was cinnamon-scented pinecones!
By the way, as we discussed each new sense, we also learned the stanza about that sense in our Christmas poem. Your child has a copy of it attached to their newsletter. If they can read it or recite it by themselves by Wednesday, they will get a Christmas-y prize! (They do not need to collect signatures this time).
On Thursday, the students' taste buds really confused them. I wrote the different tastes that our tongues recognize on the board and showed them a red hot candy (not in its box) and asked each child to guess what they thought it would taste like. (I also didn't tell them what it was called). Of course, they all assumed it would be sweet like a strawberry. But they were in for a surprise! The looks on their faces when the heat set in was priceless! I followed up by showing them a dark chocolate mint M&M. It was a very unassuming shade of green. This time, most of them guessed it would be sweet like chocolate. Once again, they were surprised by a minty, bitter taste. Here's a video of the PM class tasting the Red Hots.
And finally, our Fun Friday senses activity was about touch. I placed a cookie cutter in a "Touchy-Feely Box" for the students to reach in and feel, but they couldn't see what was inside. (The morning class also had a small pair of mittens in their box). The students had to describe what the object felt like and then they made their guess.
We followed this up with an activity that used almost all of our senses - using cookie cutters to make delicious-smelling cinnamon dough ornaments. Mrs. Taylor has a perfect recipe for it and the ornaments were looking super cute when I left them to dry this afternoon.
We wrapped up our fun Friday with the art activity we were supposed to do last Friday (the snow day). We are learning about measuring and comparing measurements in math. To tie into this objective, the students made a Christmas tree by ordering green paper strips from longest to shortest.
As for centers, the favorite of the week was the present wrapping center (what better way to learn about rectangular prisms?
The Number Work center involved measuring and recording the measurements of various Christmas items using pop cubes.
In Math Games, the students played Race to Santa's Sleigh.
The Word Work center was "Roll and Color the Sight Words." The students worked in pairs, taking turns rolling the word dice. They would then choose a piece on the page with the same word and color it together (according to the color key).
And in the Writing center, the students wrote the Christmas words neatly in the letter boxes.
And while we may not have been able to get outside for recess this week, the students did have a pretty good time dancing in the classroom. I leave you with the PM class dancing to Who Let the Dogs Out and the AM class doing Santa Clones. Your child will probably want to dance to the Santa Clones again. Here's the link to the entire Just Dance video that they dance along to. Its awesome.
Have a Merry Christmas! I'll post again in the NEW YEAR!
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