Gingerbread Fun!

We are having so much fun with our Gingerbread Man Unit!

On Monday we read the classic version: "The Gingerbread Man" We mapped the story by telling the characters and setting and retelling the BME (beginning/middle/end). We recorded this in our interactive notebooks as well.

On Tuesday we read "The Gingerbread Baby." After we story mapped that version, the students had to go back to their desks and write one similarity and one difference on two different sticky notes. They had to include compare/contrast key words (ex- but, however, unlike, same, alike, both) in their sentences.

Today we read "The Gingerbread Man Loose in School" and we worked with a partner to retell the BME. They loved this version!!! So cute.

Tomorrow they will pick one of the first two stories and write a compare/contrast paragraph with the Gingerbread Man Loose in School.

Other skills we are focusing on this week:

Phonics: Compound Words

Antonyms

Verb Tenses (Past, present, future)

Comprehension: Compare and Contrast two or more versions of the same story/ Retelling the beginning, middle and end of a story. (Picking out the most important parts)

Writing: Last week we started the brainstorming part of our letters to Santa. This week we are working on the rough draft. We are focusing on using a traditional outline with an opening sentence, the body and a closing sentence. We are also incorporating the components of a friendly letter which we learned last week as well as persuasive components we learned before Thanksgiving break. We will work on the final copy next week. These are turning out so cute!

Religion: Celebrating Advent and Mary saying "yes!" to God!

Thanksgiving Fun! Peek at the Week

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!!

 

The week before Thanksgiving was busy, but fun! We stayed busy learning about the First Thanksgiving and writing persuasive turkey essays.

 

The writing prompt was to try and persuade the reader to not eat turkey for Thanksgiving. They had to come up with an alternative food and give reasons why it is better to eat than turkey. This was challenging, but fun!

 

We also had our Turkey and Eagle play. They did a fantastic job! All the teachers said this was the best performance they had seen in a long time!

 

T

We were tired yesterday when we came back from break. We are back into the full swing of things today!

 

This week in:

 

ELA:

 

Phonics Skill: Long O (o, oa, ow)

 

Spelling Words: goat, hold, show, most, bowl, float, toast, ago, open, told, toad, slow, almost, throat

 

Comprehension Skill: Drawing Conclusions (using what the text says plus our background knowledge to draw conclusions about the setting, characters and plot)

 

Vocab Skill: Prefixes

 

Fluency Skill: Accuracy and appropriate rate

 

Conventions Skill: Subject Verb Agreement

 

Writing: Friendly Letter

 

Yesterday we learned about the 5 componenets of a friendly letter (date, greeting, body, closing, signature). In centers, we are begining to brainstorm our Christmas lists. We are going to write another persuasive piece- but this time we will format it as a friendly letter. This week we are brainstorming 2 items we want from Santa with three reasons why we want it. Next week we will turn it into a friendly, persuasive letter to Santa! They are SO excited.

 

Religion

 

All about Advent! Yesterday we brainstormed how we can be helpful and show God's love during Advent. Today we talked about the Advent wreath and its significance and prophecies about the birth of Jesus.