December Ends

A Short and Busy Week

                        To finish December we packed our suitcases for the last time with all of our Holidays Around the World materials. Their passport and suitcase is full! The students were able to each pick a card from another school from our Christmas Card Exchange, add their trees complete with decorated ornaments from each country, a sparkle poinsettia and Chinese lantern.

The students also packed up their cute reindeer writing. After reading Imogene's Antlers they wrote what they would do if they had deer antlers and mounted this on deer paper they made with their hands as the antlers. They also filled out an application to be one of Santa's deers. We finished on Wednesday with our party before leaving. We will begin January with some New Year Goals.

Can You Buy Me Scoot?

We have been trying to stay on track with our curriculum during this busy holiday season and all the extra activities involved. We have been having fun learning math while doing a "Can You Buy Me?" scoot activity. I tagged old mini-Beanie Babies and then had coin purses with different amounts of change in them. They first had to count the coins and write that amount on their sheet and then see if they had enough to buy the stuffed animal. If they did they circled yes, if not they circled no. Once each student was done, they scooted on to the next desk and started again. They had so much fun counting and working that they wondered when they were going to start math. In social studies we are continuing to travel with our Holidays Around the World and in science we are finishing weather and Earth changes.

Busy December Activities

We have been busy making and receiving Christmas cards from classrooms across the country. We are participating in the Holiday Card Exchange Project from ProjectsByJen. We made our snowman card using the 3 sizes of marshmallows as a stamp dipped in white paint on a bright blue paper tri-fold card. The students love receiving the cards and looking up on Google Earth where the school is located and then information about the class. We then display the cards in the hallway along with a large map and string showing where the card came from for all of the other students to enjoy. We have also been traveling around the world learning about holiday traditions in other countries thanks to Christina Bainbridge's Christmas Around the World. Finally, we have been studying the water cycle in science and just started a money unit in math.