Merry and Bright

We have been busy, busy, busy these last two weeks: learning prepositions, studying Christmas around the world, sorting 2D from 3D shapes, and warding off the flu. Hopefully we've been more successful with the former three goals than we were with the last one! 

This week we learned about Christmas traditions we enjoy that come from other countries. Each day, we found a new item: a nutcracker, a poinsettia, and a gingerbread house. We watched a few dances from the Nutcracker ballet and read the story "The Legend of the Poinsettia" by Tomie de Paola.  The students also watched a short video that showed how a gingerbread house is made.

We wrote about each item and where it came from on an anchor chart, reading and rereading it everyday. As a culminating activity on Thursday, I cut the sentences apart and gave each student one word. They had to find the students with words from their same sentence and put them back together. 

 The students also wrote about these items in their special "Christmas Around the World" journals. And on Thursday, they drew and wrote about how their families celebrate Christmas here in the USA. 

The students toured the world of Christmas a bit more during center time this week. In the fine motor center, they used paper confetti to make a poinsettia. 

They reassembled photographs of real nutcrackers, a gingerbread house, and of Santa on the beach in Australia by ordering the numbers at the bottom in a number line.  

In the math games center, the students worked even more with number lines to play the game "Race to the North Pole." They each had three game pieces (Santa, Rudolph, and an elf) that they had to move down the number line. They used the plus and minus cards we've used in other games, such as Turkey Hunt and Pumpkin Patch.  

They made a book of Christmas words in the word work center and labeled a Santa and a reindeer in the writing center. 

We wrapped up the week with our Christmas party where the students had a 2D and 3D shape feast, which they first had to sort. There were some Whoppers (to represent spheres), too - but they were eaten before I got the pictures

They made candy cane ornaments out of tri-beads and pipe cleaners with Mrs. Taylor.

And we played "Count by Tens" gingerbread man bingo in my center. 

The afternoon class had one extra party center: Pin the Heart on the Grinch!

Also of note this week, we celebrated Tacky Christmas Sweater Day.

These girls didn't look tacky- they just looked cute as a button. 

And now for last week........

As I mentioned before, we learned prepositions. I didn't actually use that word with the students. The goal was that they would understand and use them correctly. There was an added bonus of using these as clues when reading new text. We watched this music video everyday upon arrival. 

Then we came up with ways to use these words to describe the items in the Christmas-y living room.

 

The students continued to work on using prepositions in their journal writing. Each day they wrote about their Christmas tree. Where was it? What was on top of their tree? What was beside their tree?

My tree is in my living room.

My tree is in my living room by my garage door.

I have an angel on top of my tree.

A window is beside my Christmas tree.

A cabinet is beside my Christmas tree.

A window is beside my Christmas tree.

My Christmas tree is beside my window.

A tv is beside my tree.

I realize this is journal pic overload but I was SO proud of their work this week - and they were too. The week prior we had really struggled with our journal writing. So I tried a new approach and it  paid off. I hope to see more writing like this when we get back so please encourage them to write over the break. They can even send me a letter! Text me and I'll send you my address. 

In the math realm, we worked a lot with shapes and measurement. We found real-world objects in our own classroom that represented the 3D shapes we were learning about. We went on a few 3D shape hunts to find all the cylinders, spheres, and cubes we could. 

The math games center encouraged a hands-on exploration of 2D and 3D shapes. The students pretended to be Santa's little helpers - answering his mail and filling up his bag.  This game served a dual purpose- practicing addition and discovering the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. 

 They got another hands-on feel for 3D shapes (specifically rectangular prisms) in the GIFT WRAPPING center.  This center was kind of a big deal. 

For the last two weeks, the students have been putting an Elf on the Shelf floor puzzle together. They were a lot better at it this week!

In the word work center, our sounding out skills were put to work. In the "Santa's New Crew" game, the students recruited new reindeer for Santa. They had to first sound out their names, then sort them into their word families. 

 

 Our Fun Friday craft was a paper strip Christmas tree inspired by our unit on measurement (and our own very colorful Christmas tree in the classroom). The kiddos had to order the strips from longest to shortest and then topped it with a star. 

All throughout December, we've been using this new calendar,  This is our first (and last) ABCDE pattern. I just can't whittle down the cute clip-art!  We also kept track of the days left until Christmas. 

On the next page, we tracked the days in school by moving the wreath.

And finally, the students built teen numbers using tens and ones. This activity will lead us into building larger numbers with multiple groups of ten when we get back.

Well- that's it for 2014.  Enjoy your break, stay healthy, and I'll see you in January. Merry Christmas!

The 5 Senses.....of Christmas!

This week we had tons of fun exploring our five senses with a festive twist.  On Monday, it was all about using our sense of sight to spy all the new Christmas decorations in the room.  There were snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, a tall white tree, and A little elf, who the students named Pearl. 

The next day, the students used their sense of touch to figure out what was inside the mystery box. They wrote in their journals about what they felt and guessed what it was. There were two things - something soft and something hard. Afterward, I revealed a tiny pair of fuzzy mittens and a metal sleigh. 

The students went on a smelling hunt on Wednesday, The classroom was filled with a cinnamon scent. The students had to use their sniffers to find out what it was. It wasn't the spaceman....

It was scented pine cones!

On Thursday, the students had to hone their listening skills to find the student with the same shaker sound. Each student was given an old metal film canister that had something rattling inside (beads, or pennies, or rice, etc). They walked around, listening to one another's shakers, deciding if they had the same pitch and fullness of sound. It was difficult to find a match- but once they had, we opened up the canisters to see if they indeed had the same item inside. 

Then on Friday, we had the mother of all sense experiments - a candy taste test! The students looked at 3 different candies: Red Hots, dark chocolate mint M&Ms, and sour candy spray - except they weren't told what they were.  They made a guess on how they would taste based on sight alone. We recorded our guesses on a chart and tasted them one by one.

As you can see from the guessing - they were all surprised when the spice, the mint, and the sourness set in!

Sophia's reaction when eating the red hot.

Liberty getting a dose of the sour spray candy

Later that day, the students got a treat they were more familiar with: candy canes. We described the way it looked, felt, smelled, tasted, and sounded. 

Then the students write about the five senses of candy canes in their journals. 

Most of our centers had something to do with the five senses and Christmas as well.  Instead of building in the block center, the students trimmed the Christmas tree. 

In the fine motor/sensory center, the students got to use their sense of touch and smell to cut out "cookies." There is a great recipe I found - 1 cup conditioner and 2 cups corn starch, for a wonderful smelling and super soft play dough. Make it at home on a snow day (which we're bound to have a few of) to provide your child with hours of fun. 

In the word work center, the students used either a special jingly pen or a jumbo sized Christmas pencil to roll and write -at words. 

The students built teen numbers by putting marshmallows into mugs of hot chocolate in one of the math centers.

And in the other math center, the concept of measurement was introduced using Christmas items and pop cubes. The students first measured, then recorded their measurements on a corresponding worksheet.

Finally, in the writing center, the students chose from a bulletin board filled with toy catalogue clippings to write letters to Santa.

The pop cubes, ball ornaments, and marshmallows have also been a great way to introduce 3D shapes. We learned the "3D shapes are FAT not FLAT." There's a whole poem we'll add on to that starting next week. But this week, we watched this music video on youtube to learn the names of five 3D shapes: sphere, cylinder, cube, cone, and pyramid. 

In literacy, we began learning the first of 3 digraphs: /ch/, /sh/, and /th/. This week was all about /ch/. The students learned the "cha- cha" chant to help reinforce the sound.  

With all of this rain, we've had to get pretty creative with our indoor recess. The students have been dancing to "Santa Clones" which is hilarious to watch. Here's the AM class getting down. 

To go along with the 5 senses unit this week, we played "Marco... Polo," except we've been saying "Merry...Christmas." But even these fun games don't beat good old outdoor recess. So let's all pray for nice weather next week!

For the grand finale on Fun Friday (along with all the taste-testing activities) we made cinnamon-dough ornaments. Mrs. Taylor mixed the ingredients in front of the students - lots of cinnamon, some applesauce, and Elmers glue. Then the students chose their cookie cutter and made their own ornament. These should be dry enough to take home Monday or Tuesday.