Chronology: Gingerbread
It's the most wonderful time of the year: gingerbread versions! We've had so much fun in our first week of comparing and contrasting the different versions of The Gingerbread Man and focusing on sequencing the characters in each different version.
We read 5 different versions of the original, The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Girl, The Gingerbread Mouse, The Gingerbread Bear, and The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School. We made a lot of double bubbles with the similarities and differences we found.
We did a little special somethin' with Mrs. Grotts and Mrs. Taylor (and Mimi!) in the art room on Wednesday! Some of the kids want it to be a surprise, so I won't tell you exactly what we did...BUT it was super fun! Mrs. Grotts read, "The Ninjabread Man" and we made some great connections.
We learned about "soft G" since Gingerbread makes the /j/ sound instead of the /g/ sound! Green group had been learning about soft C, so this was perfect timing!
We got a new toy: a document camera & let me tell you- it is LIFE CHANGING! We're loving sharing our learning with our friends on the smart board!
We had our 2nd paw party on Monday- hot cocoa & Polar Express (we only watched a bit each day & finally finished on Thursday... the kids know our 1st job at school is to learn & that they earned that privilege, but we can't spend all day watching a movie!)
They are loving the OPTIONAL writing center of writing letters to Santa... (they know that they do not have to do this center & we had a long talk about families celebrating holidays in different ways. We focused on respecting our friends' traditions and differences!) This is another great authentic way to get your kiddo writing!
Next week we continue on to week 2 of our gingerbread versions and have a lot of hands-on activities planned! Thank you so much to all of you who are baking gingerbread men for us (or offered to)! I've never had so many responses to an email! ;)
Ask Your Child About:
-Phonemic Awareness: Sound manipulation
-Phonics: vowel sounds, nonsense words, & digraphs (sh, th, ch)
-Reading: Comparing and contrasting characters, settings, & adventures in familiar stories- Which gingerbread version was your favorite? What was the same in that one to the original? What was different?
-Math: Addition- They've got this down & we're moving on to subtraction. I know many of you probably think they aren't being challenged enough, but since the kindergarten standards are only within 10, we focus our pen & pencil work within 10 and then I challenge the kiddos who are ready with the games and centers we do! Please know I am doing everything I can to keep your child growing as MUCH as I possibly can!
-Social Studies: History standard 2 (chronology)- sequencing the characters in different versions of The Gingerbread Man
-Writing: Tree Maps & adding details!
Reminders:
-Library is every Tuesday! :)
-We take the MPG math test Wednesday (12/13) afternoon- please do everything you can to make sure your child is here all day that day! Thank you!
-Skills of independence: With the cold weather, please please please make sure you are helping your child become independent with bundling up! I know you only have 1 or a few kids at home and it might be more time efficient to just do things for them, but I have 23 munchkins and it takes up a lot of our time! We had several lessons on fixing our sleeves and zippers- please help keep me sane this winter! :)
FYI:
-I gave the DIBELS assessment this week & I was very impressed with the kids! They're showing so much growth! Our phonics and phonemic awareness are strong, so I'd love to see that sight word data grow now! :)
-Just a reminder that I really don't need/want personal gifts for the holidays (see The ABC's of Kindergarten for my reasoning!). I know that many families feel obligated to do something for their teachers and while you shouldn't, I do realize that the kids like picking things out... MVE made a Stocking bulletin board for the staff with items on our wish lists for the classroom. If you insist on getting a gift, I would really rather it be one of those items that will benefit our kids! Thank you for understanding! :)
Have a wonderful weekend!
With SO much love,
Ms. Ham
