Sunday, December 12, 2010

Christmas Traditions

This week we are learning about different traditions that we celebrate in our homes that we have gotten from other countries. We also learned about different names for Santa Claus in other countries: Pere Noel, Sinterclauss, and Father Christmas. We made these cute Santa’s as we learned about the different names and traditions in England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Christmas Around the World 006 Christmas Around the World 001 Christmas Around the World 002 Christmas Around the World 003 Christmas Around the World 004 Christmas Around the World 005

We also learned about an angel helper in Hungary that sets up the Christmas tree and brings gifts to the girls and boys. Here are Mrs. Schmelzer’s angels:

Christmas Around the World 013 Christmas Around the World 007 Christmas Around the World 008 Christmas Around the World 009 Christmas Around the World 010 Christmas Around the World 011 Christmas Around the World 012

Gingerbread Boy and Creative Writing

We finished up our week of comparing and contrasting all of the different versions of the gingerbread boy, girl, man, baby, cowboy, etc…The kids wrote their own version of the Gingerbread Man and did a great job of adding details to their stories. They had a lot of fun sharing their stories with one another. Here are some of the samples and the kids reading their stories to each other.

 Gingerbread Writing 004Gingerbread Writing 001 Gingerbread Writing 002 Gingerbread Writing 003

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Sweet Treats~Gingerbread Friends!

What a fun week we had incorporating different tales of the Gingerbread Man. We used these stories to integrate all of our learning this week in math, writing, reading, science, and art.

  Gingerbread Sweet Treats 014 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 015  Gingerbread Sweet Treats 017 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 020 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 021 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 023 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 024

After reading The Gingerbread Girl and The Gingerbread Boy we did a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two stories. They then made the girl or boy. They had a lot of fun decorating these characters.

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 034 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 026 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 027 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 028 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 029 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 030 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 031 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 032 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 033

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 013Gingerbread Sweet Treats 016

After reading The Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Mouse we made these cute gingerbread houses. In each of these stories the characters found a special gingerbread house to live in.

After reading all the different gingerbread tales the students created their own Gingerbread Story. They used a gingerbread friend to run away on each page. They got to pick who they had the gingerbread man run from and also how they wanted their to story end.

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 010Gingerbread Sweet Treats 009  Gingerbread Sweet Treats 008

We played two different math games using our Gingerbread Friends. One of the games was fact families. They had to make 2 addition and 2 subtraction facts using 3 numbers in a “family”.

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 035Gingerbread Sweet Treats 036  

The other game we played was “Race to the Gingerbread House” using a number line and recording our facts as we moved from 0-20. They had to roll a die and record their problems as they moved on the number line. They had a lot of fun playing this game.

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 037Gingerbread Sweet Treats 039 

All of our centers this week were gingerbread themed. Here are a few of them that we did. They used letter tiles to make the word GINGERBREAD then broke those letter tiles apart to see how many words they could build. They had gingerbread cards and they picked 2 cards and wrote number sentences adding them together. Another center was sorting math facts on the gingerbread men and matching them to the correct gingerbread house. They listened to The Gingerbread Man at the listening center and made a story map of who? where? what happened? and how the problem what solved.

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 022 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 011 Gingerbread Sweet Treats 012

 

Gingerbread Sweet Treats 007

These are our cute Gingerbread friends that we made to decorate our classroom. It was a very “sweet” week!

Geometry and Pattern Blocks Exploring

Our topic in math right now is Geometry. We are learning the concepts of symmetry, congruence, and slide/flip/turn. We enjoyed playing and exploring with the pattern blocks on Friday. We first learned the names of all the blocks and then worked to fill shapes with other blocks and built pictures by copying them with the blocks. They had a great time playing and learning!

Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 008 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 001 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 002 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 003 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 004 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 005 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 006 Geometry Unit Pattern Blocks Fun 007