The Touch, the Feel....of Christmas

Whew!  This was quite a week.  Teaching the five senses during the Christmas season is one of my favorite theme weeks. But, full disclosure here, we had many long, mandated assessments, add to that the students', uhhh,let's call them "excited behaviors" about the season, so I was turning into a bit of a grinch by Friday. Nonetheless, we learned stuff. And we had fun. Mostly. Next week will be much more "learn-ier" and fun. At least that's what I'm choosing to believe.

Some of our new learning targets this week were identifying nouns.  We looked for nouns in our morning message.

 and listened to songs about nouns as we cleaned up our breakfast and morning work. Like this one

We also found capitalization errors in our morning message. We are slowly adding to the list of things that get a capital letter. The ones we know so far (and there's an anchor chart to go with it, but I don't have a pic of it): the letter I, the beginning of a sentence, names of people and pets, days of the week, and holidays. Next week, we will add cities, states, and countries to the list (as it is "Christmas Around the World" week). 

In other 'outside-the-theme' learning news, the students learned the /sh/ sound. We found a shark, a sheep, a fish, and a shell in the mailbox. We add on to a list of /sh/ words everyday - they think of them, I write them (with their help of segmenting the words into their individual sounds), and then we work on reading and writing words with the new sound in our small groups during center time.  

In preparation for this week, the students learned "The Five Senses of Christmas" poem last week. So they were already familiar with the concept. We continued to recite it each morning.  By the way, these poems and songs we look at and recite/sing each day are doing lots of good things for us. They teach us sight words, fluency, and concepts of print. These kids are becoming GREAT readers and I am convinced it has a lot to do with this part of the day. 

Each day we explored one of the senses with a fun activity/experiment. On Monday, we reviewed all five senses using gingerbread. We read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby. We learned a new song about finding the gingerbread man, and we hunted him down ourselves. Around the room, the students found gingerbread men with words on them.

 One by one, we read the words on each gingerbread man and we discussed which sense it was describing: how it looks, how it sounds, how it smells, how it tastes, or how it feels.

 Then the students saw what the ginger root really looked like. And how it looks when it is ground into powder to use in making gingerbread.

 Then I brought in homemade gingerbread cookies for them to try.  (Ok, it was store-bought dough).

 And they told what they thought about it in their journals.

 Later in the day, we did a taste test. The students were shown three candies. They guessed how they would taste ( I had a chart up with the words sweet, spicy, salty, sour, savory, bitter, and minty. They also recorded their guesses on their own recording sheet. 

 Here's Chloee as she tastes the licorice.

 And Patrick's face behind her sums up their general consensus.

 Now take a look at Patrick after eating the Hot Tamale.

The M&Ms were dark chocolate, minty M&Ms, so they were pleasantly surprised by that one. 

The next day, we did a touching activity. Without them in the room, I placed an unknown object, similar to this ( I forgot to take a pic) inside the mystery box.  The snowman part was soft and fuzzy except for the nose, and I had stuffed paper towel inside of the bell so it wouldn't make a sound. 

Then the students each had a turn to feel it. 

 Then they described the way it felt and I wrote it down.

Next, the students wrote in their journals what they thought was in the box. They shared it with the class.  Then I revealed the mystery item. Some of them were pretty close!

On Wednesday, we made ornaments that they could not only see and feel - but also smell. Ginger, our elf, was ready with all of the ingredients and materials.

 These beauties will be coming home sometime next week once they're good and dry.

 On Thursday, we used our sense of hearing. The students each got an old tin film canister filled with random objects inside. Each canister had one matching partner. But they weren't allowed to open it and SEE. No, this was about SOUND. So, the students shook and listened until they found their match.

Once they found their match, they set them down together on the platform, then I opened them and we saw if they really had a match. 

Our final activity on Friday was making a snowmen hand print ornament.We could see the color and feel the wet and coldness of the paint. These guys will get some snowmen accessories drawn on them and will be home on your tree next week. 

 I don't really have a good "sight" experiment. Maybe next year... Although we did SEE Santa. Apparently, he is Mr. B's dad. 

 I'll end with a few miscellaneous pics from the week. And with positive thoughts that next week I will be more like Buddy the elf and less like Scrooge.

Hey- now that I think about it, this activity in the word work center was a sight activity.  (They use a magnifying glass to find the words in the picture). 

Hey- so was this one! Once they colored the word circles in the correct color, they could SEE the hidden picture. Ha!  

Oooo, counting is a seeing thing, too  I'm not so discouraged anymore!

Christmas Time is Here

It's been a busy weekend, so I thought I'd make the blog post short and sweet.  Here were the "big ideas" this week which fueled our instruction and activities: THE ELF ON THE SHELF! using the right preposition words to describe where something is, measuring and comparing measurements, and needs and  wants.  Now, for all the pics and a few captions to explain. I'll go more in depth with the next blog post. 

This was actually day 4

The students decorated the tree instead of going to the marker board center this week.

comparing and ordering by length to make Christmas trees

Some of the new pages in our December Calendar

Subitizing Math workshop

Bingo game to practice decomposing teen numbers

Filling up Santa's bag with 2D and 3D shapes

Opening the presents and making the "want" words in the magnet center

Writing a list of what we want for Christmas

Decoding words then sorting into wants and needs. 

 PS, "want" was one of our sight words this week.

 

 

 We learned many new songs and poems this week.

 

We change the subtrahend daily (the number we take away - no, I have not taught the kids that word :)

For one of our Fun Friday activities, we put our focus on others. Rather than thinking about what we want for Christmas, we thought about what our family and friends would enjoy.  First we read "Arthur's Christmas" in which Arthur struggles to find the perfect gift for Santa. We talked about how each person likes different things and how we must put special thought when considering what to get others. The students took turns sharing who they'd like to get a present for and what present they would get them.  

 Then they each pulled a stick with a student's name on it girls picked girls, boys picked boys)

 Then they drew the perfect present for that classmate

 Then we "exchanged gifts" back at the carpet each student telling another what they "got" them, and each recipient told them "Thank you." Then we did a quick review of needs and wants - how many students received a need, how many received a want. This was a lot of fun and the students really enjoyed coming up with the most thoughtful gifts.

 Our other Fun Friday project- a "craftivity" to demonstrate addition.