Brazil

Today we studied Brazil. Brazil is very well known for their fireworks during the holiday season. We watched a short video clip of some that take place over the water above the world's largest floating Christmas tree. They are so colorful and beautiful, I can only imagine what it must be like to be there! After watching, we filled out our scrapbook page for the day. 

Then, we made Brazilian tinsel-tailed bird ornaments to hang on our trees at home.

Only 3 more countries left!

France and Italy

On Friday, "travelled" to France and learned all about what it is like there during Christmas time. We were in awe of pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up with Christmas lights. We used the Smartboard to find France on a map and learn more about the Yule log. We learned that on Christmas Eve, families leave the Yule log burning all night. Many French feasts also include a cake that is rolled and decorated to look like a Yule log. Here are some pictures of us making our mini version of one! 

Yesterday we learned all about Italy. We read an Italian legend written by Tomie dePaola about Old Befana. We learned that Italian children are visited by Old Befana in addition to Santa. Old Befana comes at night and sweeps children's rooms before leaving gifts for them. We made these brooms and did some writing inside about what we learned!

We still have lots of countries to visit and learn about before the week is over. Stay tuned for more! 

Holland

I think Holland has been our favorite country to learn about so far! Mrs. P's family is from Holland so she brought in some wonderful things to show and share with us today. We learned about how children in Holland put wooden shoes out for Santa Clause (although in Holland he is called Sinterklaas), and then when they wake up, the shoes are filled with fruit, cookies, and treats. The kids got to try on some of the wooden shoes today- and quickly realized how tricky they are to walk in! :)

In the afternoon, we made paper wooden shoes and put them on our desks. We were so surprised to find them filled when we got back gym. ;) 

Just a reminder that report cards are coming home tomorrow. Please be sure to look them over and send just the signed envelope back to me on Monday. The letter and report card inside are yours to keep!

Holiday Craft Workshops

Hi all!

I know this time of year can be busy but I'm just trying to get a feel to see if anyone is interested in coming in next Friday morning (I'm thinking 9:30-10:30), to do a holiday craft with the kids. It's the day before vacation. It would be similar to what we did on Halloween- just something simple! If I have enough interest I will run holiday craft/game workshops- but if not, I will plan some other things for us to do that day. :) Please email me by this weekend if you are interested! 

Germany and Sweden

We took some time yesterday and today to learn about how Germany and Sweden celebrate the holidays.

Yesterday we read and discussed how we get our tradition of Christmas trees from Germany. I used the Smartboard to shows some real pictures of Germany streets decorated for the holidays. In Germany, they actually use real candles to light up their trees! We used bingo dotters to decorate our paper trees instead. :)

Today, we talked about Sweden and learned about St. Lucia Day. During the Christmas season, the St. Lucia crown is a holiday symbol. We made these today and wore them to celebrate! 

Tomorrow we will learn about Holland! 

Holidays Around the World

Today we started our Holidays Around the World unit! For the next two weeks, we will "visit" a different country each day and learn about how that culture celebrates the holiday season. The kids have paper suitcases and will fill out scrap books to keep track of all they learn along the way!

Today we started with Mexico. I read the book Legend of the Poinsettia. We talked about how children break open piñatas full of candy and decorate with poinsettias. On our scrap book page, we colored Mexico on a world map, decorated the country flag and wrote what we learned. Finally, we made paper poinsettias and wrote about how they are known as the flower of the holy night. Here's some pictures!

Tomorrow we will visit Germany! If anyone has family from a different country and would like to share traditions/pictures or items with us- please email me! :)

Save those paper towel rolls!

Hi all! 

I am in need of paper towel or toilet paper rolls for one of country projects. If you have any in the next week or so, please send them in for us to use. Thanks!!

Calling All Volunteers!

Next week, we will be starting a huge holidays around the world unit to learn about how different cultures and countries celebrate this time of year. The kids will have paper suitcases to collect things along their "trip" around the world and make little scrapbooks too. For each country, I try to do a small hands-on activity or craft to represent something we learned about that country's tradition.

 If anyone is willing and could come in any day this week for an hour or two to assemble/prep materials for this, it would such be a huge help!! The time is flexible- whatever works for you! Please email me as soon as possible if you are interested! Thank you!! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all my first grade families a very happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for each of you and hope you enjoy your day with the people you love! :)

Mayflower Books

We have been integrating social studies into Reader's Workshop this week to learn about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower. After reading several informational stories and creating class charts to highlight important information, we created these fact books filled with key facts about the Mayflower and the conditions on the ship. I hope you enjoying reading them when they came home today!

Thanksgiving Feast!

School internet is down

I just wanted to apologize to anyone that has tried to send an email but hasn't received a response  back from me. We have been having a lot of problems across the district with the internet and I have been unable to access my account at school. I will respond tonight from my home computer if anyone has sent me one! If there is anything urgent tomorrow, please call the school/send a note instead of emailing me just to ensure I get the message. Thanks!

Reader's Workshop: Characters

This week, we are knee deep in one of my favorite units of the year. Our mini lessons this month are centered on fiction stories and involve getting to know the characters we read about. Throughout the start of our unit, I have been using books full of small stories about one of my favorite characters: Poppleton! This pig has a lot of spunk to him, and the kids love listening to stories about him just as much as I love reading them.

Last week, we finished up learning about how readers get to know their characters. This anchor chart highlights the important things we learned: 

This week, we've started to dig deeper and are beginning to make inferences about our characters. This is important thinking for your child to engage in as they read. Today's lesson stressed the importance of using clues from the text to figure out what kind of character is in the story. 

We read a chapter together and did some of this great detective work about Poppleton, using clues from the text to support our thinking about what kind of traits would describe Poppleton. 

Finally, I gave the students a copy of the same chapter we read together and asked them to do some detective work about another character. They had to identify a trait to describe Patrick the Finch, and then use clues from the text to support their smart thinking!

You can support this at home as you read together! Encourage your child to tell what kind of person the character is and then ask: "What clues in the text make you think that?" This will help build comprehension and higher-order thinking!