Here are some pictures from our Christmas unit right before we left for break!
One of the books that we read to start our Christmas theme. It's a cute story about a little elf who was just to little to work at Santa's workshop. He ended up finding his very own special job with a new special friend.
In the afternoon when we read the story, we had a visitor show up in our classroom. It was the elf from our story. He is one of Santa's special helpers who would come everyday to watch the Kindergartners. He would then fly back at night to report to Santa how they were. The Kindergartners decided to name him Snowflake. Everyone meet our elf: Snowflake.
One of our letters we learned was the letter Dd. We first brainstormed some words that either started with the letter Dd or had it in the word and then we listed our words on chart paper. We made a daisy craft to go with our letter. On each petal they had to write a 'Dd' word. They could use some words on the chart but also had to find a Dd word that was in our classroom.
Our classroom door for the month.
Working on some center word: listening and identifying sounds of words.
Color word identification - Center work.
Buddy reading.
Centers.
Our letters to Santa that we submitted to the paper and used with our Santa craft.
In math we started to learn about shapes and figures. We sorted our different types of figures and glued them into our journals. We learned: sphere, cone, cube and cylinder.
We read the book: "Snowmen at Night." We listed some of the activities that the snowmen did at night that happened in the book. We then brainstormed some other activities that snowmen could also do at night.
Here are our ideas about what they would do.
They each then had to chose what their snowman would do and finish writing their sentence. After their sentence was written they had to draw a picture of their snowman.
Our snowman craft. We cut up white paper into small squares and glue them to from the snowman's face.
Our Christmas wreaths.
Our Santa craft with their letters.
In science we learned about penguins! We learned that they live in Antarctica down by the south pole. We also learned that a polar bear and penguin will never meet. After reading books about penguins and going over our penguin fact chart, we filled out together our own penguin fact chart.
On the last week of school before Christmas break, we did daily themes. One of our daily themes was the Gingerbread Man! We read two different stories about the Gingerbread Man. We read the classic fairy tale "The Gingerbread Man" and then we read "The Stinky Cheese Man." Both were the same but one was made out of gingerbread and the other was made out of stinky cheese. We compared the two stories and then identified how they were different from each other. We voted to determine which one they liked the best and they liked "The Stinky Cheese Man" the best.
To go with our Gingerbread Man theme, they each go to decorate their own gingerbread man cookie. Some at it that day and others took it home.
Our poem that we put in our journals.
Working on some Christmas math: rolling a Christmas tree.
Our colorful Christmas trees.
Silly Snowflake! :)
Polar Express Day!!! They were pretty excited about this day because not only was it Polar Express day, but it was also PAJAMA DAY!!
Here are some activities that we did. They each had a Polar Express ticket that they had to show the conductor (myself) before they came up to the carpet. They did a very good job at not losing their tickets.
When we came back from recess we each had a surprise on our desks, even Mrs. Bartling got one!
Picture on Polar Express day!
You can't have a Polar Express day and pajama day without making hot chocolate! We made our own hot chocolate, just like they did on the Polar Express.
The last day of the week before Christmas break was Grinch Day! We all had to wear green. Mrs. Bartling wore her grinch hat. I told them that they had to be careful because Mr. Grinch show up instead of Mrs. Bartling. After reading the story "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Seuss. Guess who showed up? Mr. Grinch. We quickly came up with ways to make the Grinch smile so Mrs. Bartling could come back. They came up with some very good ideas and their ideas worked!!
Writing down how they would make the Grinch grin.
We attached our writings with our Grinch craft.
In the afternoon was our Christmas party!! They were antsy all morning, but who wouldn't be? :) We opened our presents, made Grinch punch, had some snacks/goodies, played games and watched the cartoon How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
