Christmas Party

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  See you in January!

Thank you room moms for all your hard work.  We had a great time at the party!

Author's Visit

Douglas Florian came to visit today.  He is an author/illustrator from New York that has written more than 50 children's poetry books.  During his presentation he shared how he gets his ideas for writing, talked about the writing process and showed original artwork as well as a printer's proof.  In closing, Mr. Florian answered questions from the students. His writing includes:
                        *Insectiopedia
                        *Beast Feast
                        *UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems
                        *Poem Runs: Baseball Poems

    

Gingerbread Fun!

We started the day with a variety of traditional gingerbread activities...readers theater, graphing first bite of a cookie, and a science soaking experiment.  Then I decided to change things up a bit.  I divided the class into 4 groups.  Each group was given one book, either The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Bear or Gingerbread Friends and 1/4 of a large gingerbread house made of chart paper. Groups read, then completed a story web (character, setting, refrain and ending) on the paper. We shared the 4 webs,  rebuilt the gingerbread house and compared differences/similarities of each book.  We quickly noticed the main idea of each book was the same...the gingerbread needed to be caught.  So, students were asked to create a trap to catch their gingerbread, take a picture of it and blog!  Love it!  The students used cardboard, construction paper, string, ribbon, glue, tape, anything they could find!  Planning, creating, measuring, collaborating, adjusting...I just love watching creative minds at work!   

Gingerbread trap

Gingerbread trap

The Night Tree

Today I read The Night Tree by Eve Bunting.  This Christmas story is unlike many others.  In this story a family travels to Luke's Forest on Christmas Eve night in search of their perfect tree.  Once it's found, instead of cutting the tree down they decorate it, as they do each year, for all the animals in the forest. 
Because this story is so unique, I wanted the students to make predictions.  I read half the story and then asked them to predict/write how they thought the story would end. Once finished, I read the remainder of the story.

Students recorded their prediction on a 3 tiered tree (title, prediction, actual ending )

Guest Reader

I just love it when one of my students asks to read to the class.

Hour of Code

December 8th - 15th  is “Hour of Code” week.  This week is designed to create an interest in computer science for students K-12 as they learn coding (programming).  Hour of Code is supported by President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. 











To promote coding I introduced 'Kodable'.  The objective is to put arrows in correct sequence so the 'fuzzy' will travel through the maze and eat the coins. Total engagement!  The students really enjoy this programming app and love to share their coding strategies.

Grinch Day!

The students were so excited when they arrived this morning... it's Grinch Day!  To start our busy day off I read the classic story, 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' by Dr. Suess followed by brainstorming adjectives to describe the Grinch.  Students used the app Educreations to explain how the character changed in the story and posted their thoughts to their blog.  Once posts were made it was time to make 'Grinch Kabobs'!  After making their Kabob students completed a brace map and wrote a 'how to'.   Oh, and of course they ate it!!  But wait, our day wasn't over. We also had a Grinchy math and word building activity,  mixed up some Grinch Dust to sprinkle on their lawn Christmas Eve and made a Grinch craft.