Thursday, December 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Christmas Around the World
Today we celebrated Christmas Around the World. We went to Mrs. Van Horn's room, Mrs. Backlin's room, and Mrs. Ferrell's room.
In Mrs. Van Horn's room, we learned about Christmas in Australia. We learned:
-It is summer instead of winter and they don't have snow.
-When you throw a boomerang, it comes back to you.
-There is an island close to it with a Tazmanian Devil on it.
-There are lots of kangaroos in Australia.
-Every day it is hot.
-It is a small country.
-They use the boomerang to trip or knock out animals.
-Santa arrives in a bathing suit.
In Mrs. Backlin's class we learned about Christmas in Brazil. We learned:
-They have fireworks at Christmas.
-They don't have stockings. They use a shoe.
-They don't have snow.
-They call Santa Papai Noel.
In Mrs. Ferrell's class, we learned about Christmas in Mexico. We learned:
-They have a fiesta, or party, there.
-They have a flower called a poinsettia.
In our classroom, we learned about Christmas in the Netherlands, or Holland.
-Their Santa is called Sinterklaas, and he is skinny.
-They put out wooden shoes instead of stockings.
-Sinterklaas has a helper who goes down the chimney. His helper's name is Zwarte Peite.
-Sinterklaas arrives in a steamboat, and rides a white horse in a parade.
-They celebrate Christmas two times. On December 5 and 6, they give gifts. On December 25 and 26, they have family time.
-December 6 is Sinterklaas' birthday.
-They speak Dutch. We said the months of the year, days of the week, and numbers to 10 in Dutch.
-They are known for wooden shoes, windmills, and tulips.
-They like to ice skate in the winter because they have lots of water.
-They have a celebration called "Midwinter Horn Blowing". Men blow horns that are 3-4 feet long over a well.
-You have to be in the royal family to be the king or queen.
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Friday, December 17, 2010
Gingerbread Fun
This week we spent time reading a variety of books about gingerbread. We used four of the books to do a special group project. Each group got one of the books. They had to figure out the characters and setting for the story. They also had to write a short summary of the book. The last thing they had to do was find the repeating phrase used in the story. All of these were put together on a large paper gingerbread house. The kids had a great time making them, and they turned out great!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Wrapped Up in a Good Book
We wrote a festive book report about one of our favorite books. We decorated them to look like Christmas presents. The report included the title, author, picture of our favorite part of the story, and a written description of our favorite part. We even got to rate the book from 1-5 gifts!
Christmas Tree Walk/Gingerbread Cards
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| Free picture slideshow created with Smilebox |
Earlier this month we went on our annual Christmas Tree Walk. We went to the Opera House to view LOTS of different trees. We couldn't believe all of the different ways people decided to decorate their trees!
We are part of a holiday card exchange, so we made 24 cards to send all over the United States. We even sent one card to Canada! We will be receiving cards back from them throughout the month. Our cards were made with sandpaper and paint. We decided it was very strange cutting the sandpaper. It did make them look like real gingerbread men though.
Since we were having so much fun making the gingerbread men, we decided to make even more cards. We sent them to Holiday Mail for Heros. The cards will be distributed to service members, veterans, and their families.
Gingerbread Glyphs
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| This free digital slideshow generated with Smilebox |
We did a neat activity that combined crafting with math! First, we had to answer questions about ourselves. Next, we used our answers to create a gingerbread person that told about us. This is called a glyph.
The gingerbread's hair tells when our birthday is. The color of the eyes tells whether we are a girl or a boy. The mouth tells what we think is the best pet. The buttons tell what we like to do. The stripes on the arms and legs tell how many brothers and sisters we have.
The day after we made these, we got someone else's gingerbread person. We had to look at how they decorated it to write about them. We got to know someone else in our classroom this way.
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