Hi Room 6 Parents,
The week before winter break tends to be high energy and lots of fun! I believe this past week was no exception. Because much of what we did may end up under your Christmas tree, I may be a little vague in my descriptions 😉 but here are a few highlights:
Last Friday we read The Polar Express. If you haven’t read the story before — the boy receives a bell from Santa, but loses it through a hole in his pocket. He is happily surprised the next morning when the jingle bell is wrapped under the tree for him. He then learns the magic of the bell: only those who believe in Santa hear it ring. On Monday we created jingle bell mazes that guided a bell from the North Pole to home just like the story. Some of the mazes had tunnels, others had trick holes that led to nowhere, but all of them were creative (and loud! Have you ever rattled a jingle bell around a foil roasting pan?!)
On Tuesday we wrote our own 13 Days of Christmas song after reading The 12 Bots of Christmas. This book rewrote the song including things like three wrench hens and two turbo doves. We decided the robot theme wasn’t fitting for our class, so we wrote our days of Christmas full of animals! Students had to match the syllables in the original song (except, of course, our added 13th day!) and we could not repeat any animals. Check out what we wrote below and using the link in my email!
On the 13th day of Christmas my teacher gave to me
13 Yoshis building, 12 lions roaring,
11 eagles flying, 10 cute koalas,
9 striking hawks, 8 dolphins playing,
7 snakes flying, 6 grownup rabbits
5 walruses!
4 rolling pigs, 3 cats meowing,
2 sleeping pups, and a blue whale in a bear tree!
On Thursday we had our much-anticipated worm debate. Mr. Chris’s class listened to our opening arguments, rebuttals, and proposed solutions. They discussed and then proposed some solutions of their own. We will continue our discussion in January, but it sounds like many of the students in our class are excited about the idea of vermicomposting while leaving any found worms at the park. I am very proud of the work your students put into the debate. Each group was required to identify the source (or sources) used for their worm facts. We talked about the credibility of sources and why it is important to cite our sources. While writing our statements, we also practiced organizing our argument and adding support to each point.
Throughout the week we opened presents from under a dry erase board tree that all just happened to be library books ;). After reading each one, we completed a matching activity. This included anything from writing a song (above), to building a snowman out of fake snow (The Biggest, Best Snowman), to making various ornaments (The Carpenter’s Gift: A Christmas Tale About the Rockefeller Center Tree and Elmer’s Christmas). We even wrote short poems about our holiday traditions (The Santa’s Kwanzaa) and practiced the binary alphabet when we made a coding ornament (Auntie Claus Home for the Holidays).
We wrapped up the week in our pajamas cleaning the classroom, our cubbies, and our binders and, of course, wrapping the presents we made — we really hope your Christmas is “the bomb” 😉 We also hope you enjoy the work your kids brought home to show you from the first half of our year together.
Have a great holiday break with your families! See you in 2020!