Gingerbread

Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man! We have been having so much fun with our gingerbread literacy unit! We have read many different versions. It has given us the opportunity to compare and contrast texts. We learned that the characters are the WHO of a story and the setting is the WHERE.  We identify the characters and settings and compare the different versions. We make predictions about wether or not the gingerbread boy or man - or even GIRL will get away at the end. We made gingerbread ornaments and our own gingerbread class book. When you read at home ask your child about the characters and setting of the story. Here our some of the versions we have read so far. Next week we will branch out and read The Runaway Rice Cake and Stop That Pickle!
Here are MANY of the books we have read...

 
 

Pattern Book Writing

We said goodbye to small moment writing and have shifted our brain to pattern book writing. As readers, we read small books with words that repeat on every page. As authors, we are now going to "write like we read" and compile a bin of pattern books. The first day of this launch was spent exploring different pattern books, such as "I See Patterns" and this is what we noticed…

I then gave the kids 10 minutes to work with a buddy and explore these types of books on their own...

             

Our 5 Senses

Our science theme for December is the Five Senses. We have been learning poems, reading stories, and exploring about/with our 5 senses. Ask your kindie what the 5 senses are…

We used this big book called My Five Senses by Alilki to teach us all about how our senses work together to make us "aware" of what is around.

We explored the sense of "sight". We SEE with our EYES. Our eyes take a picture of what we see, and send the message to our BRAIN. When we see a bee, our brain thinks "run!". When we see a red stop light, our brain thinks "stop!". When we see a present, our brain thinks "open it!" I brought in some sand from the beach, different seashells, and colored stones for the kids to explore using magnifying glasses. Take a look with your sense of SIGHT!…..

Another sense we have is our sense of SMELL. We use our nose to smell different things. There are good smells and there are bad smells. I had the kids participate in a "smell test" where they closed their eyes and had to smell different numbered containers and match the number with the pictures.

The different containers were…..bananas, vanilla, ketchup, lemon, pickle juice, and cinnamon!

 
 
 
 
  …We voted on our favorite smell jars and recorded our results! Most friends liked the smell of vanilla and 0 friends liked the smell of banana.

Another sense we are exploring is our sense of TASTE. We use our tongue to taste things. Ask your kindie what the little dots/bumps are on their tongue and what message they send to their brain.

Did you know there are 4 parts of the tongue which taste different tastes? The front of our tongue tastes  things that are SWEET. The back park of our tongue tastes things that are BITTER, the left side of our tongue tastes SOUR things, and the right side of our tongue tastes SALTY things.

We participated in our very own "Taste Test" where we sampled food that was salty, bitter, sweet, and sour. Can you guess which one was our favorite by our faces?

 
 

 
 
We used our name sticks to show which taste was our favorite. Then, we wrote our findings with the numerical number and tally mark…We graphed our results to finish! (Sweet was our most popular taste!)


TOUCH - Take a look at the sense of touch…We explored things that were soft, smooth, bumpy, and rough. Then, we explored objects in our room by using our sense of touch. We talked about how objects have different TEXTURES.
  
 

The last sense we discussed was our sense of hearing. We took a listening walk on our way back from recess and went through the long way in school to get back to our classroom. We heard these things….

"Birds chirping"

'The wind"

"Foot steps"

"A teacher"

"Kids talking"

"Flushing a toilet"

"Pencil sharpening"

People talking"

"Music playing"

"Lunch ladies talking"

"People clapping"

When we got back to our classroom, we listened to different numbered sound jars and tried our best to match the numbers to the sound….We heard the sound of paper clips, cotton balls, water, jewels, buttons, pennies, feathers, beans and the sound of NOTHING!