Have you read The New and Improved Santa? This book was really fun to read. The students LOVED the illustrations and were amused by Santa’s transformations in the story. Thanks to Cara Carroll from First Grade Parade we made these “new and improved” Santa’s. They turned out very cute, but the kids were kind of funny…not sure they wanted to change up Santa!
Tomorrow we will wear our PJ’s and take a ride on The Polar Express!
We spent the past 2 days discussing Santa’s reindeer and learning facts about real reindeer. We did a KWL on reindeer, made a reindeer facts book, made cute reindeer antlers, and made a list of what we had learned. Then we put this reindeer art project together with our writing projects on “all about reindeer”!
And crazy busy! I feel like I can’t keep up with everything lately! I should be baking, doing my Christmas cards, and wrapping presents, but this long overdue blog post has been on my mind and there are so many cute pictures to share! I decided to do this while I watch 2011’s Most Fascinating People on the Barbara Walter’s special…and I know how inspiring and fascinating the blog world has been for me! I have gotten so many neat ideas and have been fortunate to share what we do in our little classroom. Since Thanksgiving break we have been busy with gingerbread, reindeer, Christmas presents, and Santa. First we started with a Sweet Batch of Gingerbread centers and literature activities!
We did several literature activities with different versions of the Gingerbread Man. Here are some of our favorite stories and activities:
We started our Gingerbread unit with a 5 senses activity that came from Mailbox Magazine several years ago. I made this poster to go with the poem and then we did this booklet about the 5 senses of the season.
Yummy Treats!!
Caleb’s grandma (also our wonderful secretary at our school) made us some delicious gingerbread cookies that we had soooo much fun decorating and eating! Special thanks to the parents that sent items to use to make our cookies look so cute!
Jan Brett’s Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends were favorites because of the illustrations and peek-a-boo pictures. We also created these gingerbread houses and gingerbread friends:
They completed this gingerbread sentence wheel and created some super “sweet” sentences.
What a creative group of kids…after reading The Gingerbread Kid and The Gingerbread Man Loose at School they created their own version of the Gingerbread _______At School. They picked the girl, boy, man, cowboy, pirate, and wrote about what they did at school.
We finished up the unit with a comparison of the Gingerbread Girl and the Gingerbread Boy, but did not get any pictures of them…and they were sooo cute! What a fun 2 weeks! Next up….
Holly Jolly Centers, Reindeer, and a New and Improved Santa!
