Book 6: The Christmas Wreath

So, speaking of the Grinch, as a teacher in December, don't you ever get just a little tired of the noise, Noise, NOISE?!  Please tell me I'm not the only one!  Today, my morning left me feeling slightly "grinchy."  But, with a little love (and some whole-brain teaching),  by afternoon my little darlings had returned, and we were able to have some fun with our next Christmas book -  The Christmas Wreath, by James Hoffman.

 

This is a sweet story that describes some exhausted elves (let's just say I could relate to the feeling) who are too tired to decorate a tree, or even to make a beautiful wreath.  They make a simple wreath for the door to Santa's workshop.  But, the wreath becomes beautiful when a Polar Bear finds it, gets it stuck on its head, and drags it through the water, forming beautiful icicles.  The wreath makes it back to Santa's door, and becomes a "Christmas Miracle" for the elves.  Another 27 thumbs up story!

I'm sure you know what we did next!  We made some simple Christmas wreaths as gifts for our parents!  I make this project every year.  It is simple, but pretty, and the kids get a chance to practice their patterning.  Here are some of my students' wreaths:

Many of them even tied their own bows this year!  It is very simple to make.  Here is one without the ribbon added yet.  The kids tucked the ends of the pipe cleaner under the beads:

Some of them figured out they could make heart-shaped wreaths:

I actually thought the heart-shaped wreaths were a great idea!  Most wanted keep them circular, but the joy of pipe cleaner is that they can change their minds whenever they like!  We put a piece of masking tape on these with our names, so we can sort them all when it is time to send home our Christmas gifts.  

Have fun keeping it simple!

Day 5: The Grinch

Today we unwrapped, and began a week's worth of activities with, Dr. Seuss' famous Christmas story - How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

 We read the first parts of the story, and reviewed our story elements:  characters, setting, problem.  Next, we read the middle and discussed the details of the story.   We completed the following worksheet as a class.  I guided the discussion with the overhead. We're old-school like that. ;-)

Grinch Retelling for RT Unit

We didn't get a chance to finish the story, but we will do that tomorrow.  We will review what we have learned so far about the parts of a story, read the ending, and discuss how the problem was resolved.  We will continue the fun with the grinch all this week!  Some of our fun activities:

• Grinch glue (green glue) for our spelling word practice.
• "Make a Grinch smile" writing project.  We will write a class book of ways to make a Grinch smile, with illustrations.  I wanted to do an art project to go with it, but I think I'm doing enough art already this week!
• Grinch word work centers from Babbling Abby.
• I introduced a fun math game today for our math centers time.  We learned about the number line today, and counting up from the biggest number.  I wanted to create something that would allow students to practice counting up, and involve some "grinchy" fun, as well!   The instructions are included with the game below:

Counting Up Math  -   recording sheet

Game Cards with directions

In keeping with our "Dr. Suess" theme for the week, our class gets to go to our local high school's production of Seussical, Jr. on Thursday!  It's close enough to walk, and with budget cuts, it will be our first 1st grade field trip in 3 years!  When I told the kids we were going on a field trip they were So excited!  I think I might be just as excited as they are. :-)

 *Update* - My students did such a cute job with their retellings, I had to post a few pictures.  (please pardon the low quality - I'm having trouble figuring out the flash when taking pictures of something white!):

 

 "he got to serve the roast beast."

 "His heart grew 3 sizes bigger and he liked Christmas."

"The Grinch wanted to ruin Christmas."

Christmas Book 4- Christmas Mice!

On Friday, we unwrapped the adorable book, Mousekin's Christmas Eve, by Edna Miller.

This is an older book that I checked out from our school library.  The sweet little mouse in the story "loses" his home, and has to go searching for a new one.  He goes out into the cold, snowy night where he is uncomfortable and scared of predators.  He is surprised by the colored lights coming from a Christmas tree.  He sneaks into the warm house, climbs all over the Christmas tree, and finds a new cozy place to sleep inside the nativity scene.  I loved this book, because it was appropriate to read in the public school classroom, but also had a very strong message about finding peace and comfort at Christmas time.  I was kind of surprised, but my kiddos LOVED it!  27 thumbs up for this one!

After reading, we made our own "mousekins" out of paper.  I saw a picture of this project on Flickr and pinned it to my pinterest.  Here are our version of the project, and the directions I came up with:

 You need:  construction paper backgrounds (I chose blue and green to represent more "wintery" scenes,  plain white sheets of paper per child,  one 1/2 sheet of white construction paper per child, two 2 1/4" white squares per child, two 1 1/4" white squares per child, scraps to make whiskers from, mini candy canes, pom-pom noses ( I used pink, red sparkly, and silver), google eyes, snowflake punch-outs (I bought the punch at Hobby Lobby - 40% off right now!), and silver glitter.

 1-  Teach your students how to draw a "tear-drop" shape for the mouse's body.  I had mine fold a plain white paper in half "hamburger style", start in a corner, and draw the teardrop.  We practiced four times.  I tried to emphasize making it wider at the bottom. 

2-  After practicing, we drew our "final" teardrop shape on a half sheet of white construction paper, and cut out.  (Cute that some of the mice look a little like rats because of their long shapes, but that's what makes this project so special!  It is 100% student work.)

3-  Glue the tear drop shape onto construction paper backgrounds.  I let my kids choose where to put it.  The paper could be vertical/horizontal.  I wanted it to be theirs, so I didn't make any rules.  Make sure students don't glue down the "bottom" of the rat, so they can slide a candy cane there.

4-  The hard part was the candy cane -  We unwrapped it and used bottle glue to glue it down.  Students did a LOT of counting.  We learned that we had to have patience.  If we moved it too much, it made our papers red and icky.  If we pulled on it to check if it was dry, it pulled out.  We had to just leave it and let time make it stick.

5-  Next, we made the ears.  We rounded out the squares of white and pink, glued them on halfway, and folded the ears up.  We left room for eyes and a nose.  (Some kids can't see this, and need help to keep from gluing the ears onto the nose.)

6-  Next, students glued on the google eyes and pom-pom noses.  (This was another lesson in patience.  If you pull up your pom-pom to check if it is sticking, it will not stick, and you lose all of your glue.)

7-  We used scraps of white paper to cut whiskers.  I really liked the thin whiskers in the picture above.  Most were a little thicker.  Again, everyone's were different.

8-  Next, students glued on the snowflake cut-outs made with my punch from Hobby Lobby.  I told them to make a "frame", but I also gave them license to do it their own way.

 

9-  We added glitter.  Students had a great time.  I gave an example of adding some to make eyelashes, and sparkle on the whiskers, and some in the snowflakes, and told them to use caution because too much and it might not be pretty anymore.  Some did a little more than that, but overall they turned out adorable!

It was a great way to spend a Friday morning, and I felt like the students had a chance to exercise their creativity, as well as patience!

Christmas Stories & Activities

Hello Blog Friends!  I confess that I have been more of a blog-stalker than an actual blogger this school year.  I have been given 27 little kiddos this year, 10 of whom REALLY struggle, and 8 who are the highest in our grade level.  So, I have been having to slow down, and keep it simple.  Planning has been very time-consuming, trying to reach everyone's needs!

But, it is Christmas time, and I have to bring on the magic!  Christmas time is a great time to push kids a little further with such high interest activities that they don't even notice!  So, I decided to read 14 Christmas stories (one each day), and attach an activity to each.  I wrapped up each book, and we open one each day.   I thought I would share some of what I do with all of you, in case you find any inspirations.   (I copied Amazon links, but I don't have them attached to any affiliate link.)


DAY 1-  Gingerbread Man

We read the Gingerbread Man story, and filled out a graphic organizer on the wall.  I drew a large gingerbread house (not picture-worthy, as I am not the best artist!), and separated it into 3 sections.  We identified the setting and characters of the story and learned that the BEGINNING of a story defines the setting and characters.

We also read, this fun little book, and added it to our graphic organizer:

DAY 2-  Gingerbread Baby, by Jan Brett

We read the beginning of this story, as well, and added to our Gingerbread house organizer.  We discussed who the characters and setting were.   

Then, we began the awesome Gingerbread Science experiment from Babbling Abby.   We filled out the first part, added the gingerbread man to water, and waited.

While we were waiting, we read a Gingerbread man big book.  On the page where the fox eats the gingerbread man, I covered up his picture with white paper, and a note fell out from the gingerbread man!  We had to chase him around the school!  I will include the link here with my gingerbread man poems.  I have them from back when I taught kinder, and I am not sure where the words came from.  I have a feeling, I'm not the original creator, though.  You can edit them for your own use!
Gingerbread Man


When we came back to class, my coworker had left gingerbread cookies for everyone with a note from the gingerbread man in our reading area.  In addition, she uncovered his picture in the book.  It was the cutest thing!  One little boy was just ecstatic, saying "He's real!  He's real!  Do you know what this means?  The gingerbread man is real!"  It made it SO worth the time it took to bake all of the cookies and plan the activity.

We all took just one bite of the gingerbread man, and graphed the part we ate first (apparently we all liked to eat right legs and heads).

Next, we examined our gingerbread man science and completed the worksheet.

It was a wonderful afternoon!

DAY 3-

We completed the Gingerbread Baby story.   First, we reviewed the beginning, by filling out the beginning of a story map together.   Next, we completed the story, and discussed what the big problem was in the story.  We talked about how we often learn the problem in the beginning of a story as well.   Here is the organizer we used.  We drew pictures where there are no lines to write.  (It might not look right online, but if you select "download" it will look the way it is supposed to.)

Gingerbread Man for Retelling Unit


We completed the day by reading Ginberbread Friends together.  The kids just love these stories, and cheer afterward!

My Room and Some Stuff to Share

I have been wanting to post pictures of my room for a couple of weeks.  But, I just had too much work for my class to get on here and post anything.  Now that I am *kind of* where I need to be, I thought I'd take a few minutes and share some of this summer's work with some classroom photos. (Sorry, I know they're not the best quality.  I used my iPhone.)   Let me know what you think in the comments, if you would! :-)

My door:

I didn't take many whole-room shots this year.  Not sure why.  Here is the closest thing I have:

My "Celebrity of the Week" board.  I have started decorating it with my items in this picture, but it is only halfway complete:

My Math Corner:

My number posters (at the top) are available for purchase in my Teachers' Notebook store for only 99 cents.  I think they are awesome for helping students with place value  (if I do say so myself!).

The Calendar Board:

If you like my weather cards, you can download them for FREE from my Teacher's Notebook shop.  Just print them out, mount on cardstock, laminate, and cut out.  I hole punched mine at the top and put them on a ring.  It just hangs on a normal push-pin.  The students love choosing the correct weather card.  Then they read a sentence (you can kind of see it in the picture).  It says "Today's weather is:" and the students insert "sunny" (which is all we have had here since school started.).  I hope you enjoy these with your kiddos, too!

I made the colorful pockets out of card stock and just stapled them together and onto the board.  I painted wooden stars and glued them to tongue depressors for "today, tomorrow, and yesterday" and used scrap-booking stickers for the words on both the stars and the pockets.  Maybe I'll get a better picture today so you can see it better!

My lunch count/attendance:

 I use electrical tape, shrinky dink magnets, and the side of my file cabinet!  So easy!

New idea for this year's library corner:

My new peg board writing center.  I personally love it!