Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from my family to yours! 

Winter Party 2011

At our holiday party we decorated Santa graham cookies and drank juice. The students had so much making their Santa cookie and eating them! Go to the  Pillsbury website for the recipe to make Santa grahams at home.

Polar Express Day 2011

We went to the science lab and learned about arctic animals and their adaptations with Mrs. Riggins.

We experienced how their fat keeps them protected from the cold. We put our hand in baggie that contained a baggie filled with Crisco. We put the side that wasn't covered by the Crisco on the ice water first and then flipped it to the where the Crisco was between our hand and the ice water to see how their fat keeps them warm.

Then we went to the library. Mrs. Anderson read The Polar Express to us and Mr. Gonzalez showed us the pictures on a PowerPoint.

Next we went to  the reindeer food station. We read the poem, talked about what the word "roam" means. Then we made our baggie of reindeer food. We also read the story Imogene's Antlers. In the classroom, we filled in the word wall words in our poem.

We played Christmas bingo using M&Ms as our markers. The students had fun taking turns being the bingo caller.

When we were finished playing we ate our M&Ms! Yum!

Mr. Grinch

We read The Grinch who Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. We used the story to focus on characters and motives. 

We used it to review text to self, text to text, and text to world connections.

We wrote our text to self connections about what makes us grumpy and happy.

We also wrote about what we would do to make the Grinch grin and made the Grinch.

A Very Merry Giveaway

Mrs. Lemons at Step into 2nd grade with Mrs. Lemons is hosting a giveaway for DJ Inkers Fontastic 3 cd. Check it out here.

Characters and Motives

We have been learning about characters and their motives for doing and saying things in stories to help us better understand what we read and what is read to us. We introduced this by reading Auntie Claus. I modeled the first three examples on our chart. Then for the last two, the students talked with their partners and I wrote down what they discussed. We also reviewed theme or the big idea of the story. All the students agreed that the big idea was it is better to give than receive. We talked about how we can give our time to help someone else that giving is not just material things. 

We are Poets!

We brainstormed about the Gingerbread men we had eaten using our five senses. 

As a class, we wrote a five senses poem about gingerbread men. The students wrote on their own white boards while I wrote what they dictated to me.

We brainstormed about Christmas using our five senses.

Then students used the ideas we brainstormed to write their own five senses poem about Christmas.

We brainstormed about Christmas trees by creating a bubble map.

Then we created a shape poem about a Christmas tree. I wrote what the students dictated as they wrote on their own white boards at the same time.

We brainstormed about presents by creating a bubble map.

Then students used our bubble map to write their own shape poems about presents.

Winter Addition and Subtraction

We started our addition and subtraction unit by reading Christmas Angel from Clifford's Puppy Days series. Then I passed around a bag of Christmas decoration and each student took one. Then I told addition and subtraction stories about decorating a Christmas tree. We worked on making two sets and then joining them together or making a whole and separating them.

 Here's a peek at our math journal!

 We read Happy Holidays by Deanna Jump and then used a Gingerbread house mat and gumdrops and peppermints to model addition and subtraction stories. I recorded the number sentences on the white board as we told our stories. I modeled telling the stories and then choose different students to give a story to model and they had to tell me if it was joining (addition) or separating (subtraction).

We also used a Snowman mat and buttons to model addition and subtraction stories. Students did more of the story telling that day and took turns modeling on the elmo the stories as worked them together.