Saturday, December 14, 2013

Our Gingerbread Home



What a BUSY and short week we had!  Monday and Tuesday were snow days!  While I was excited for the days off, it made me wonder / worry how I was going to get some of my holiday stuff done!

Never fear!  My students worked so incredibly hard these three days of school we had!
My plan was to have my students make a gingerbread house bulletin board.  However, I didn’t just want them to make it and then that would be it.  I wanted them to show their work on it.
Our finished project!

Our gumball roof and part of the house

Part of the bottom of the house

The other part of the bottom of the house

Bottom middle of the house

I cut out the basic shape of the house (which was divided in half because on that wall, it’s the bulletin board, coat hooks, and then wall,).  Then during small groups, my students helped me paint the frosting.  This was actually a better activity then I ever thought it would be.  First of all, my students had to collaborate on this.  (How they were going to divide up the area, share the paint, etc…)  Second of all, a few of my students had no clue how to paint,  how to use the paint brush, how to turn it to make the lines look good….so it was truly a learning experience for all of them.
Next up we worked on our peppermints.  I had already put the lines on the paper plates.  My students and I talked about patterns, what they look like, and different kinds of patterns.  Then I let the students paint a pattern.  They really liked it! 

While the paint dried, we reviewed doubles facts.  We used the poem from First Grade Wow’sDouble Mint Math packet!  We also used 2 of Harry Kindergarten’s Doubles videos.  Doubles 1-5 and Doubles 6-10. (My kids LOVE those songs!)  Then I gave the students their peppermints.  They had to write doubles facts on there.  While they were writing their facts, I could hear them reciting the poem and singing the songs!  So cute!!!  Here are a couple of the peppermints:


Next up were our gingerbread people!  I got the template from a Holidays Around the World packet I bought on TPT.  We’ve been learning about adjectives in class.  So after coloring in the face and decorations, they wrote adjectives about themselves.  (They did all of this with crayon.)  Then we took brown water color paint and painted over it.  The kids LOVED how it made the crayons POP!

I love how this student made a frown but wrote they were nice! :-)

We’ve spent a lot of time learning about December holidays all over the world. (Courtesy of the packet I mentioned above.) Each of them got to pick a gumball and a country.  Then they had to write a fact that they remembered from that country.  I was pleasantly surprised (and happy) with some of the things my students remembered!

Finally, my students made mini gingerbread houses that we turned into fact family houses.  They got to pick the numbers they wanted to use for their fact family.  (Of course they were somewhat limited.  They could only pick numbers from 1-10.) 
Added this to the side of our gingerbread house so anyone passing by would know what we did!

After all was said and done, I put up their work and showed it to them.  Their faces lit up with excitement!  It truly was adorable!

Thanks for reading!
Enjoy your weekend!
Stacey

Thursday, December 5, 2013

My Daily Hundreds Chart

I love counting the number of days of we have been in school!
I have my students use the number of days we've been in school as a daily math lesson!
I have a chart prepared each day that looks like this:
Each day, I write a student's name at the top.  (I go in ABC order.) 
Here are pictures of the completed chart and sections of the chart:
Completed Chart



They have to draw the number using tens and ones

Then they have to come up with all the different ways of making that number.  This takes lots of practice!  Students eventually see the pattern are easily able to do it.

After circling whether the number is odd or even, my students say a chant.  Today's chant was "0, 2, 4, 6, 8, even numbers are so great!"

My odd chant is "1, 3, 5, 7, 9, those odd numbers are so fine!"

I model this process for the first fifteen or so days of school.  The students love to do this!  I also allow them to take their paper home at the end of the day.  They are so excited to share the paper with their family!

Thanks for reading!
Have a good night! :-)
Stacey



Saturday, November 30, 2013

Hanukkah + Thanksgiving = THANKSGIVIKKUH!!!

The very next day (after our big Thanksgiving feast,) we started talking about Hanukkah and we made potato latkes!!!!

Latkes Latkes, sizzling in the pan!


Our guidance counselor likes to teach through cooking! :-)


Taking the latkes out!

It wouldn't be Thanksgivikkah without MENURKEYS!!!!

I got the idea from here!


I believe she meant to write "Happy Hanukkah Everybody!" 
I'm finally ALL caught up on my posts!

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving!
Until next time!

Stacey

THANKSGIVING!!!

2021 Edit:  As I look back on my posts, I realize that some of the things I blogged about over the years, do not reflect accurate information.  For example:  Thanksgiving.  I realize I could easily delete the parts that include false information, but I'm not going to do that at this time.  I now know better.  Please fact check everything with regards to Thanksgiving.  Otherwise, I hope you enjoy some of the other activities we did with Thanksgiving. 

GOBBLE GOBBLE Y'ALL!!!!!

Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday!  I love the message behind it!  (Granted we should be thankful everyday but still!)   We had quite a busy Thanksgiving!

We made Pilgrims on a Mayflower ship:

Sorry for this being sideways!  I don't know how to rotate it on here. (It's already rotated in my picture album!)




 So I got the ADORABLE patterns for the Pilgrims from First Grade Wow! We read Sarah Morton's Day and Samuel Eaton's Day.  We generated a list of facts about Pilgrim children, and then each student wrote down those facts!

They loved making those Pilgrims and LOVE seeing them sailing on the Mayflower!

We also had a HUGE Thanksgiving feast in my classroom! 
We had deli style turkey, sweet potato casserole, green beans, corn, cornbread, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and I think that's it!

We made Mayflower name tags and I used blue tablecloths so it would like the ships are sailing!




I wish you could see their faces but they're adorable!



Everything was delicious!  My students really enjoyed their feast! :-)

ENJOY!
Stacey

Families

We started talking all about families and how everyone's family is different!  After reading about families, (I'm sorry, but I'll have to look up the name of the book and get back to you on it,) we wrote about our families and then drew pictures of them!





I'm not sure how well you can read their writing but it started off by saying "There are many kinds of families."  Then they wrote if their family was big or small, who is in their family, where they live, and 3 activities their family does with them!  They really were adorable!!!

This family project I'm using as an intro to Thanksgiving and all the December holidays since every family does something different! :-)

Enjoy!
Stacey

November - Veteran's Day

Just a few days after our 50th day celebration, we studied Veteran's Day!  I got this FABULOUS idea from Miss Kindergarten:




 My students enjoyed making their soldiers!  They also went to our building service manager and thanked him for serving our country! (He was in the army!)  He really appreciated it!

Thank you to all of you who served!
Stacey

Synergize: Together is Better - Nascar Style

  Created the image with two separate images found on Google. I had the pleasure of teaching summer school this summer.  I was not at my usu...