All things holiday in K-1 today!

We have been having so much fun with our gingerbread unit this week reading all different versions of The Gingerbread Man. To go along with this fun unit, we had so much fun today learning how to play Gingerbread Man Squeeze. To play this game, they put strips of paper together that had the numbers 1-20. I also gave them two gingerbread men that they colored with crayons and put on each end of the strip of numbers. Before they were assigned to play with a partner, I showed them how to play together as a whole class. They had so much fun playing this game and trying to guess my number along with their classmates. To play the game, you lay out the number line first with a gingerbread man on each end. The person who is IT gets to write down a number which is between 1-20 on a whiteboard and they turn it upside down. Then their partner has to try to guess their written number. As the person guesses, the one who is IT gets to move the gingerbread men along the number line whether the number is less then the number they guessed or more than the number they guessed. They keep playing until the written number is guessed. It was so fun! After they learned how to play as a class, I assigned them a partner where they got to play the game wherever they wanted in the classroom and play it multiple times together. The room was full of smiles, giggles and excitement as they played Gingerbread Men Squeeze together. For homework, I asked them to play the game with their family as least two times but many of my kinder friends said they wanted to play it a lot more than that tonight. They were excited to play it with you at home! Here are some pictures I took of both classes playing the game today:

For some added fun today, I did a directed draw reindeer with the class today. These activities are wonderful for kindergarten because it is a great way for them to strenghten their ability to follow directions and to problem solve. It also gives them the opportunity to practice copying something from the board at their seat as well. All these skills are going to help them be ready for first grade! When I showed them the reindeer we were going to make, they were SO excited! I am amazed with how well they all did following my step-by step directions. They turned out AMAZING and they are absolutely adorable! The class is so excited to bring them home today to show all of you! Here are some pictures of them making the reindeers and some photos of them when they were complete.

Literacy fun!

Today in class, I did a literacy lesson with the class where I read them a non-fiction book called Map My Neighborhood. When I read the story to the class today, we talked about the text features of the book such as the Table of Contents, the Glossory, the Heading. I talked to the class about what each part is and why an author includes them in the book. When we were done reading the story, we talked about the neighborhood in the book and how it is like the neighborhood they live in by Olive in Arlington Heights. We talked about the things that were the same and we named things for each thing that was mentioned in the story. The class did a great job connecting the story to their own lives. To help further this connection, I gave each of my kindergarten friends a blank white piece of paper. I asked them to draw a map of their neighborhood. I was blown away with their detailed maps and I LOVED seeing all the things they chose to draw on their map. They did such an excellent job! Here are some pictures of the class with their map drawings: