Snow! It is freezing here. I am not a fan. I will take the snow day as long as payment doesn't come due in May. So now add in the fact that my 15 tightly packed days has now turned into 14. Needless to say we were busy this week!
A special delivery cam Monday! Monday morning, we actually received a call from the office that we had a package. I sent a couple of responsible children down to get it. They were less than impressed. I will never win an Oscar but I can sell a child or a class on this. The acting took over when one of my little boys told me the gingerbread man was not real therefore the letters could not be either. As serious as I could be, I looked at him and said well it is postmarked from him. The first letter was postmarked with our town. The letter simply introduced the class to his journey to the North Pole. The various letters also bring a way to learn about the culture or something related to what the gingerbread man is doing. This one, he left us strips of paper to order to make a tree. Although, it is not overly exciting, the trees hanging in the room makes it joyful. It is also fun to see children's finished work. The differences are interesting. If you would like the delivery label from Santa, you can find it here on Kinder Craze's blog.
Next, we received a letter from Mexico. The gingerbread man also sent us the book The Legend of the Poinsettia. We read the story and learned about the celebration of Los Posadas. We made tissue paper poinsettias. I love the way these turned out!
Again, an opportunity to see their personalities in their work. I love the way these bring spirit to the hallway!
Meanwhile, Snowflake was less than impressed with our classroom kindness. She means business. They were not overly impressed with her simple message but it did spark lots if conversation. They were perplexed as to why she didn't move more than what she did.
On the third day, the gingerbread man was in Antarctica looking for reindeers but all he had found were penguins. They didn't make the correlation of Snowflake's antlers. She got out one of my favorite puzzles and was playing reindeer games. The gingerbread man also sent us ingredients for reindeer food. The class was very interested in this and so it became an opportunity to engage them. They had lots of questions about how the reindeers would come, if they would really eat the glitter, when to put it out. The reindeer labels can be found here.
One of the responsibilities, at least in my opinion, is to make sure that children have some keepsakes to give their families. Thanks to Pinterest and one of my team mates, I decided to make these reindeer ornaments. On Wednesday, I painted each of their hands. When the possibility of snow became more of a reality, Thursday became a race of getting them laminated so I could work on them if I was stuck at home. Mission accomplished!
The reindeer food labels can be found here. The gingerbread man went to Africa next. We talked about Kwanzaa and read K is for Kwanzaa. The gingerbread man sent us supplies to make Kwanzaa mats for our Winter party.
On Wednesday afternoon, I decided it was time for something major for Snowflake. So early Thursday a.m., I was hanging red and green crepe paper up on the outside of the classroom as well as the bathroom entrance. I dyed the toilet water green and it needed something just a bit more. Ribbon makes everything better so a bow would do! When they came in, they were more interested in finding out where she might be than they had been in previous days. For some reason, they couldn't get over this. Some of the boys were fascinated with the fact that Snowflake poops green. I read her note after morning meeting. These printables and others can be found here.
The other elf in the pictures are from the local paper and a promotion called Where's the Elf. Cash prizes are involved so since I am already participating, I decided to include the elf so I could use twitter and Instagram to share Snowflake's adventures. You never know what might happen, right?
I do not do well with redundant questions. My least favorites... "when is recess" and "when is lunch". This time of the year, they will ask everyday about the next most exciting event. Part of my job is helping them understand that Christmas is one day of the month. It happens in December. I am a big fan of counting back to help children deal with the excitement. This is our countdown to Christmas. I made it over the thanksgiving holiday. You can find directions here. It literally keeps them from asking me "how many days until Christmas" and helps them visually count back. One child started to ask one day during our math lesson and turned around looked at the countdown and stopped mid sentence. Perfect use of my time and who doesn't love to look at something cute?
We also started using a graphic organizer on our white board to talk about the characters, setting and various ways the different versions of the gingerbread stories end. It is fun listening to them compare and contrast the stories.
Does your classroom have an elf? What ways is your classroom elf incorporated into children's learning?
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