Friday, December 16, 2011

Holiday Fun!

We had tons of fun for the last two weeks of school before Christmas Break! We did penguin, gingerbread, grinch and polar express activities! :) The kids had tons of fun! I got most of my ideas from the wonderful Deanna Jump!

First up, we learned all about penguins. We started out with Deanna Jump's penguin book and her poem about penguins.


We did several other activities, but I forgot to take pictures. :( My favorite was an All About Penguin book where the kids did several graphic organizers to record the facts they learned about penguins. They turned out so cute!

Next we did fun gingerbread activities, once again using a fun unit from Deanna Jump! We were learning about syllables so we made a flip book sorting pictures by how many syllables they have.


Next we read Deanna Jump's gingerbread book that ends with all the gingerbread people being caught in a jar. I had the kids create their own gingerbread people and write about how they would catch them in a jar.


We read many different versions of the Gingerbread man (there are so many out there!). After reading The Gingerbread Girl we wrote about its story elements.


After gingerbread fun, we had a Grinch Day! I used several activities from Deanna Jump and after we watched the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Of course, I started the day by reading the book. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.


After reading the book, the kids did several reading response sheets on their connections with the story. They write about how the Grinch changed, and also what makes them grumpy and happy.


I love that my one student is happy when she gets to come to school. :)

We also read Deanna's grinch poem and illustrated it in our poetry folders. My kids are great artists, but this one student did an amazing job. He is such a wonderful artist! I want to write a children's book just so he can illustrate it. :)


My favorite activity was making the grinch faces. The kids made their grinning grinch face and then wrote about how they would make the grinch grin inside his mouth. They turned out ADORABLE!


The last week and a half before Winter Break, we talked a lot about Holiday traditions. I used several activities from my own holiday unit where students had to brainstorm what traditions they do at home and write about their favorite one.


The day before our party day at school, we had a Polar Express day of fun! Once again, Deanna Jump has a wonderful unit on this great book.


We wrote about the story elements of the book (characters, setting, problem and solution) and connections we made with the story.



I love that one of my students would want a karaoke machine as her first gift of Christmas. I told her that's what I would choose also! :)

Along with writing activities, Deanna had adorable crafts that we didn't have time to get to. I can't wait to do them with my class next year! (There is never enough time!!)

After lunch, the whole first grade team had our classes watch the movie Polar Express. We also made it pajama day in honor of the movie and of course, me and my awesome team dressed up! We are so cute!


After the movie the kids got hot chocolate! YUM YUM!

Another activity I used as a center activity I got from What the Teacher Wants. The kids got to imagine they lived in a snow globe and then they illustrated it in a snow globe craft. They turned out adorable and were perfect decorations for our Holiday Party.

Hope you enjoyed our fun activities. I am officially off for Winter Break so I'm going to take a little blog break. I'll see you all in 2012! Have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!!


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