Polar Express 2019

Image from here.

Last year, I turned my classroom into the Polar Express. Last year, I was also teaching first grade.  Since I'm in third grade this year - and in a new classroom, I decided to change it up a little bit.  I wanted every scene from the book hanging up in my room.  I thankfully had parent help creating the scenes and hanging them up.  (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!)  The students helped with coloring and painting.

I read the book for them in the morning - and they pointed out every single scene while I was reading.
During the movie, they would shout out, "Mrs. Lynch! That scene is over there!" and they would point to that scene.

We had a great discussion afterwards where we compared book and movie. "Why wasn't that in the book?"  "Why is Pennywise in the movie?"  "Where are his friends in the book?"  The questions kept on coming!

Without further ado, here is a tour of my room:

The first two pictures are actually one - I just couldn't get it in one photo since it wrapped around the corner!

The wolf scene was one that I made last year.

This was made last year (by my co-teacher.)

I made this last year as well.  It was cut into two pieces to fit on the sides of my Promethean Board.

Again, I had to cut this picture to fit on the sides of my Promethean Board.

I ran out of space in my room so I had to put these two scenes on top of each other.

My favorite. 

I also have a video tour which you can see here.  When you watch the video, you can see how I set up the rest of the room - especially when it was time to watch the movie and enjoy our snacks! 

They enjoyed themselves today! :-) 

Have a wonderful holiday - no matter what you celebrate!

Happy New Year!

Gingerbread Zambonis

Image from here.

What happens when we're gearing up for winter break and learning about hockey at the same time?  You make Gingerbread Zambonis!

Someone had shared this link on Twitter.  I immediately told Mrs. Racosky (my co-teacher,) that I wanted to do this and we figured out a way to make it happen!  

By the way, Mrs. Racosky is the BEST!!!!!  She did a test run over a week ago and made me this:

After receiving that, I was even MORE excited about this project!

We did some shopping - okay, a LOT of shopping - and set everything up this morning!

Mrs. Racosky spent a large chunk of the morning filling pastry bags!  (You rock!!!!!!)  Each student had a foil pan, a cup full of candies, a bag of graham crackers, and a pastry bag.

 

We started off the morning by watching a short video clip of Zambonis from Discovery Education.  

Then we talked about what they had learned from the video.  They also discussed the shapes found on the Zambonis.  

Afterwards, each student received a piece of grid paper.  They drew their Zamboni and decided how they were going to decorate it.

Once everyone was done, Mrs. Racosky showed the students how to use the pastry bags.  Then they went to town!  

It was messy, challenging, and oh so much fun!

 

I want you to see all sides of their Zambonis so I took some video.  You can check it out here!

Of course, I made one too!

77 is Oshie's number!

 

The students had a blast!

Tomorrow we will look at how much candy each student used and do some math work with those numbers (addition, subtraction, greater than / less than!)

Have a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year! :-)

~Stacey~