Snowmen and Shapes

     Out of the mystery box, I took a baggie that had water, two buttons and a carrot in it.  I told the children that when I went out that morning to get the newspaper, I found these things sitting in my front yard.  I asked them if they knew what it was.  It didn't take many guesses before someone came up with the answer of a melted snowman. 

     This led into a discussion of how do you make a snowman.  Together we sequenced three steps on how to make a snowman.  Then the students had to draw and write their own three steps.

"Roll 3 balls.  Large medium small.  Then decorate."  Daniel's sequencing.

       We learned how to make a snowflake out of a coffee filter.  Fold the coffee filter in half 3 times.  Then you take little snips out of the sides.  Open it up to find a beautiful snowflake!

 

 

coffee filter snowflakes

      

 

      For our lesson on animals in winter and hibernation, the students brought a stuffed animal to school.  We read non-fiction books and researched on the internet (National Geographic for Kids) to learn about animal behavior during the winter.  Some animals change colors (camouflage) to blend in with the environment for survival.  Other animals hibernate through the winter.  We learned how the animal prepares for hibernation, and then we acted it out with our stuffed animals.

     In order for us to build up enough fat to make it through the winter, we ate  popcorn. We ate and ate and ate and became very fat.  As Fall arrived and the weather started to turn cold, we found a nice, snug place to settle down for the winter.  When winter came, we climbed into our sleeping spot and went to sleep for the long winter.  The temperature dropped, the wind blew and the snow fell, but we never woke up.  Then as Spring came, we started to stir in our beds.  When we woke up, we were really, really hungry and it was time to start eating again and start the cycle of hibernation all over again.

     There is nothing better for a teacher than at the end of a learning activity for the students to shout out, "That was fun!"  They will not forget the hibernation process for awhile.

     Here are pictures of us hibernating through the winter with our stuffed animals.

Making Shapes

       Kindergarten started a new math unit called Making Shapes.  This is one of my favorite units.  We started out on a shape hunt looking for items in our classroom that were in the shape of a circle, square, rectangle and a triangle.  

     We read the book, The Shape of Things by Dayle Ann Dodds.  

 

        The students were instructed to choose one shape, glue it on their paper and to turn the shape into something.  We used the frame, "A ____ becomes a ______."

Daniel writes, "A triangle becomes a reindeer."

Ivan writes, "An oval becomes a spaceship."

Noah writes, "A circle becomes a spot."  (This is our class reward spot.)

December

     

Reindeer

      We started the month of December learning facts about reindeer.  We researched reindeer on National Geographic for Kids and in non-fiction books. We made a reindeer book.

 

Moms give baby reindeer milk.

     On one page, we wrote a fact that we learned.

      On another page, we used a simple sentence to cut apart and put back in the correct order in our book.

     After learning facts, it was time to write fiction stories about reindeer.  We made reindeer from paper sacks.  We traced our hands for antlers and our foot for the face.  After creating our reindeer, we wrote a creative story about it.

The Elf on the Shelf

 

     After reindeer, we read The Elf on the Shelf by Carol Aebersold.  This is a story of an elf who watches children each day and then at night, travels back to the North Pole and reports to Santa about how naughty or nice the children are behaving.  When he returns the next day, he is watching the children from a different spot.  

      The book comes with the elf, and the students could not wait to enter the classroom and find where the elf was located that day.  The elf was very creative in some of the places he chose to watch the children from.

The elf is in a little car from the doll house.

Here he is on top of the projector holding on to one of our favorite dinosaur books.

The elf is riding Rudolph on top of the teepee.

Word Muncher was a good hiding spot.

He decided to cuddle up with the monkeys on this day.

The elf sat with the pigeon in a book box.

 

 

Here he is hanging on the bulletin board with our reindeer.

The elf spent the day riding the zebra.

      On three occasions, the elf left us a note, and the children were very excited about hearing from him.   During our gingerbread unit, the elf left us some gingerbread cookies.

     The students wrote letters to the elf.  We also wrote, "If I were an elf, I would help...".  And we completed the Elf's To Do List, listing things he needed to do to get ready for Christmas.

     We made our own elf and wrote stories about it.

Gingerbread Men

     The Gingerbread theme gave us the opportunity to read many different versions of the story.    We compared how the stories are alike and different by looking at the story elements - characters, setting, problem and ending.

     The different activities we participated in during this unit:

* discussed the different characters and sequencing of the stories

* learned about symmetry and created gingerbread twins

* welcomed the -an word family to our word neighborhood

* wrote our own books about different things we can run from just like the gingerbread man.

* made a gingerbread ornament for a gift for our families

* drew and labeled a gingerbread man

* after eating the gingerbread cookies the elf brought us, we graphed which part of the cookie we ate first (head, arm, leg?)

   

Holidays Around the World

      The activity pages for this unit were stapled into a file folder. A cardboard handle was added to the top so the file looks like a small suitcase. The students drew red stripes on the handle to make it look like a candy cane.

     

    

     We began the unit in our own country and discussed the traditions our own families honor.   Most of our families put up a Christmas tree, hang our stockings, exchange gifts and have a visit from Santa.

     In our "suitcase" we found the United States on a world map and colored it in. On the next page was a map of the United States where we found our state of Colorado and colored it.

     We looked at our U.S. flag and talked about how it looked. The students were excited to notice that our flag has a pattern on it. (Since our math unit on patterns, we have been finding patterns every where!)

     After talking about our own country, it was time to learn about the holiday traditions and customs of Germany. On the Promethean board, I used Google Earth to show the children where we were in Colorado, and they were very excited to realize we could see our very own school!  Then we flew across the ocean and landed in Germany. What a great tool to visualize traveling around the world!

     Our class learned that the Christmas tree  originated in Germany and is called the tannenbaum. Families gather together and enjoy baking together. One of the favorite cookies to make is gingerbread.  We made tannebaum hats and incorporated our gingerbread theme  at this time.

     In our suitcase of activity pages, we found Germany on our world map.   We compared our country to Germany and noticed that Germany is smaller than the United States. To color in the Germany flag, we had to research on the internet what colors to use because no one knew what the German flag looked like.

     Our next country was Mexico where we learned about Las Posadas, a 9 day celebration.  We made pinatas from a white paper sack and added streamers to the bottom.  The poinsettia is a tradition from Mexico, and we read the book, The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola.

We made poinsettias.

     Our last stop was Isreal where we learned about Hanukkah,  Festival of the Lights. 

Polar Express

Our door (thank goodness for Pinterest for great ideas!)

       A tradition in my Kindergarten classroom is the Polar Express.  Leading up to the big day, we read the book, The Polar Express, and participate in numerous train activities. 

       The At Home Family Project for the month of December is to find a box that is big enough for the child to sit in comfortably, and  transform the box into a train car.  Any materials can be used to decorate.

       The last day of school before the winter break is Polar Express Day.  The students wear their pajamas to school and bring their train car.  This year, the entire school gathered together to watch the movie.  In the afternoon, we cleared out the table and chairs from our room and put all the cars together to create a Polar Express Train.  We ate cookies and enjoyed playing in our train.