Christmas Measurement

Today we practiced measuring different Christmas items. The students learned how to use a non-standard unit of measurement: unifix cubes. Click HERE to download the clip art and answer sheet for this activity. The kids had fun and it was a great activity for them to do this week!

~Alissa

Gingerbread Houses

This will be a post with few words as you can image how an hour of making gingerbread houses went with 5 and 6 year olds! :) CRA-ZY! But FUN FUN FUN! It was a sticky mess by the end of the hour but I loved listening to them sing Christmas Carols as they "glued" with frosting and carefully placed the details on their gingerbread houses. Here are a handful of pictures I took. My heart was overflowing and I saw their creative minds at

~Alissa

Gingerbread Baby

If you teach a Gingerbread Unit, this packet is a must! There are too many amazing resources than there is time to use. I would highly recommend purchasing this one. We spent a few weeks reading different variations of the Gingerbread Man. One that we spent a few days comparing the original to was The Gingerbread Baby. By using this book I was able to introduce character and setting. The link to this packet is HERE.

One of the best things in this packet is the graphic organizer. I used our poster maker to make a large one to do together during guided practice, and then the children did one for independent practice.

 

 



 

On Youtube there is a video of Jan Brett, author and illustrator of the Gingerbread Baby, teaching the students how to draw and paint their own gingerbread baby. They loved this! Enjoy a few pictures of their cute drawings and the link.

 

 

~Alissa

 

 

Gingerbread Stations

Here are our stations from this week. I was caught up with testing so I was able to walk around and observe. If I had it my way, we would do stations all day! I love watching the students interact and learn by working together. The following pictures show the 8 stations they visited this week! :)

This groups is listening to Clifford's Christmas. It's nice having a lot of books on tape and CD to chose from.

 

He is matching lowercase gingerbread men. By now my students (mostly) all know their letters and sounds, but this helps solidify their learning.

 

This Maisy matching numbers game doesn't go with the theme for the week but students enjoyed using it like a memory game.

 

Color by sight word gingerbread man.

Gingerbread Patterns- We focused on patterns this week so this station gave them extra practice.

Reading corner!

Pocket chart- Students built a sentence: "Look! A cookie with (color word) frosting. Click HERE to get the packet!

 

And lastly... Puzzles!

 

 

:) ~ Alissa

Positional Words- Hide the Gingerbread Man

It is important to keep kindergartens up and moving! In order to do this, they were able to walk around the classroom and practice using positional words. Here's what we did:

1. I hid a gingerbread man in the classroom every day for the week. I had a poster that you'll see below and I practice filling it out every day.

2. On Friday, I gave each student a gingerbread man of their own. They had to color it and tape it somewhere in the classroom like I did.

 

3. Next, they were able to walk around and talk about where the gingerbread men were using positional words.

** This was especially helpful for the Amish and Arabic students that need to use the language on a daily basis.

4. The students were given a paper that matched my poster. They had to write a sentence and draw a picture explaining where their gingerbread man was.

** This integrated writing and spelling into our math time. It was very powerful to watch them write their sentences.

5. Lastly, they had to read their sentences to a friend. :)

This was such a fun activity to do in order to reinforce positional words. A great thing about this activity is that it's FREE on TPT. Click HERE to download the pdf file from Becky Castle.

Smiles

~Alissa

Gingerbread Man Craft

My students did a great job with this craft on Fun Friday! It is amazing how much quicker they are able to complete a craft compared to the beginning of the school year. I loved seeing their individual artistic abilities shine during this craft. I also loved how a few of the problem solvers in my class moved to the floor to work because they didn't have enough space. Enjoy the following pictures of them completing the craft. 

 


 
 

Run, Run as fast as you can :)

~Alissa

Positional Words- Gingerbread Girl

Today we used a very fun book called Where Is the Gingerbread Girl? We are studying positional words in math so we integrated our math vocabulary with our literacy lesson. The students loved moving the gingerbread girl to match the positional words. We did this whole group, with a partner, and independently.

I was unable to find the book on her TPT page, but it comes from Kindergarten Hoppenings. Click HERE to visit her blog.

Here are a few pictures I took of the students buddy reading. It's one of my favorite things to watch them do.

Have fun,
~Alissa

Gingerbread Man Retell

This week we are reading The Gingerbread Man and all of the amazing spin-offs of this story. Nothing brings more joy to the students than when the sly fox eats the gingerbread man. It's fun as their teacher to hear them giggle with the story and to hear them say, "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" 

Here are a few pictures of our pocket chart retell and the retells the students created on their own. (I cannot give or take credit for the clip art used because it came from multiple sources.)

We began the week by reading the story whole group and doing the pocket chart activity together. Then the students were able to lead the pocket chart activity, create their own retells on construction paper, and tell the story to their friends. They did great! :)

Another skill we were able to pull from the pocket chart activity was popcorn words. Tomorrow I will introduce "he" and "from" and we will highlight these words on the sentence strips.

It is fun to read and compare some of the different versions of the Gingerbread ______. Here are a few of our favorites in KA:

                              

Stay tuned for more Gingerbread ideas...

~Alissa