Holiday Presents, Polar Express, & More

We had a fun filled two days before Winter Break. The students were very busy and we took some time to relax after all of our hard work. We watched some movies and completed some activities related to them, the students completed their holiday gifts for families, and read more Christmas Around the World books. 

We finished the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so we got to watch the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and compare similarities and differences between the two. The students really enjoyed the movie and comparing them.

We continued to read many different books about Christmas Around the World and learning how they celebrate the holidays. We also read and colored more Christmas and holiday books like the one below. Have your child read these books when they come home in order to help them practice their reading skills.

We also completed the students holiday gifts for their families. The students painted popsicle sticks, glued them together, decorated them, and attached a ribbon to make it into an ornament. I then put the students pictures on the ornaments and wrote their name along with "Kindergarten 2016- 2017" on the bottom. They turned out so cute! I also made melted crayons in the shape of a heart as part of their gifts. I put them in a decorated bag and stapled them to the bag with the students ornaments in them and attached a holiday poem. 

The classes who performed at the Senior Citizen Luncheon sang the songs from our Kindergarten Christmas Musical for the rest of the school. They all did a great job and even the students in the audience were singing along!

 On Tuesday, we watched The Polar Express. After the movie, the students completed a sequencing activity where they had to put the events from the movie in order.

We had a great week. I hope you all had a great holiday season and have a great rest of your break. I will see your children when school returns on the 4th!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Holidays Around the World, Christmas Musical & More

We had another jam packed week of fun and learning in Kindergarten! One of my former students Lea & her mom came to teach the class about how Germany celebrates Christmas (she is a German teacher in a different district). We found out how many of our American traditions came from Germany such as decorating a Christmas tree, gingerbread cookies, Christmas wreaths, Saint Nicholas, etc. 

She brought in gingerbread cookies from Germany and the students enjoyed trying them!

Thank you Lea & Mrs. Galaise for coming to teach our class about how Germany celebrates the holidays!

Along with our Holidays around the world study, we listened to a few CD's that taught us about how different countries celebrated and listened to holiday songs from various countries. 

We learned about Hanukkah and the students made menorahs by ripping paper.

We learned about the dreidel game and we played a version of it online that I found. The students enjoyed this game!

 I brought in gingerbread cookies for the students and we graphed where they took their first bite from. As you can see, we had the most students take their first bite from the head with 19 students. 

On Friday, we celebrated a "Grinch Day" by watching Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, writing about how we would make the grinch grin, and enjoying cookies with Christmas trees on them. Take a look at some of their answers below on how they would make the grinch grin.

 We have also been working on learning our lowercase letters and earning letter books as we write each lowercase one on our letter cards for our word wall. 

On Tuesday we had a practice in our school gym for our Christmas Musical. They all did such a great job and it was a very cute program!

Wednesday morning, we rode on a bus over to the high school in order to practice in the auditorium where we would be performing Wednesday evening. 

Here are some pictures from the students performance Wednesday evening for our Christmas Musical. The students all did such a great job, I was so proud of them!

My festive outfit for the performance!

We have also been working on a 5 senses Christmas book. The students glued on various things to represent the 5 senses at Christmas time. For example, they glued on candy canes to show what Christmas tasted like, glued cotton balls to show what Christmas feels like, glued a jingle bell to show what Christmas sounded like, paint with cinnamon in it to show what Christmas smells like, decorate a tree to show what Christmas looks like. Their books turned out great!

 We also worked on coloring a Christmas lights book.

 The students worked very hard on their "The Very Hungry Reindeer" book. It was formatted like The Very Hungry Caterpillar book and we had to read each page and glue the appropriate pictures on.

 We also met with our preschool reading buddies on Friday!

The students completed their brown mosaic too.

We also read the funny story, "The Ninjabread Man".

 The students also continued to work on their holiday gifts for their families. More to come on that later!

Thanks for checking in. Have a great week!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Hot Chocolate Party, Holidays, The Mitten, Etc.

 We had a busy week this week full of so many fun activities! We enjoyed our hot chocolate party, participated in many different holiday activities, had many visitors & said good bye to our wonderful Wright State student observer this semester, Mr. Rice. Take a look below to see more details on our busy week! 

We worked hard on writing step by step directions of how to make a snowman. We worked together to discuss the steps and I wrote it on the board. Then the students had to copy the directions on their paper and draw their own pictures to show each step. 

 We read a winter book about wearing proper clothes to keep warm. We read the words and had to glue the matching pictures on each page. 

We made gingerbread glyphs. I forgot to take a picture of the directions I used and one of the student's completed gingerbread but they all turned out so great. They had to follow directions to make their gingerbread to represent them such as make the eyes the same color as yours, the number of buttons on your person is how old you are.

My mom, Mrs. Boxley was so excited to bring in all of the materials for our hot chocolate part that the students earned. They got to choose what they wanted in their hot chocolate and they really enjoyed drinking it. It was so yummy! 

We read the story "The Mitten" and completed a sequencing activity. The students worked on retelling the story as they put the animals in their paper bag.

They also got to design their own mitten and write about what could fit in it. Some of their ideas as you can see below are heart, Bentley, house, and bike.

They also said stove, rainbow, and lots of cotton candy.

We had some student nurses come talk to us about the importance of proper hand washing. They demonstrated using glitter how germs can spread from one person to another by shaking hands or touching other things.

We have been learning about Holidays Around the World and how different countries around the world celebrate the holiday season. We learned that Christmas Cards started over in England and the students got to make their own Christmas cards for their families. 

 We also learned about the Mexican Christmas flower, the Poinsettia and the students made their own.

Our friend Parker's brother Brady came to visit and read to our class. He was in my Kindergarten class 2 years ago and wanted to show the class his awesome reading skills. They students enjoyed listening to Brady read to them.

The students shared their mitten writing and our winter books with their preschool reading buddies this week.

We have also been working on a 5 senses Christmas book. The first page shows how bright Christmas looks with the bright lights.

The second page is about how Christmas tastes like candy canes. The students worked hard on crushing up candy canes to glue on their page.

We also finished our purple mosaic this week and the students are now working on completing the brown mosaic. 

Our school had a visit from the West Carrollton Fire Department this week. They wanted to show the students what they looked like with all of their equipment on and how they were not scary. They discussed how if they are in your house, they are there to help them and not to hide from them! We got to listen to them use their oxygen tank and even heard him talk with it (he sounded like Darth Vader!). 

Since we have now learned all of our uppercase letters, we will be going back and learning the lowercase letters and matching them on our letter cards for our word wall. As we do this, the students will be earning 2 books for each letter to take home and practice reading.

 Along with the book we made for Mr. Rice that I shared with you last week, we also made this picture for him with the student's thumbprints. It turned out great!

Thanks for stopping by! Check back again next week to see what we are up to next!

Have a great week!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant