Ms. Crowley's Class

What a busy week we had!  After learning about Hanukkah and holiday customs in Australia, we started focusing on holiday customs here in the United States.  We talked about what a tradition is and the different traditions our families have.  We also began our Holiday Workshop.  A big thanks to all of you that sent in items and those of you who came in and helped!  It was a big success!  Unfortunately we were so busy during our workshop, that I forgot to take pictures!  Oops!

During shared reading this week we read the book, "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell" by Lucille Colandro.  We were able to make text-to-text connections and we also practiced sequencing using a flow map.

On Wednesday we read Dr.Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".  We talked about how characters can change and made a chart showing how the Grinch changed.  The green words describe the Grinch at the beginning of the story and the red words describe him at the end of the story.  

Later that day during writing we brainstormed different ways we could make the grouchy Grinch grin!  Each child made their own grinning Grinch and wrote how they would make him grin.  This one says, "To make the Grinch grin I would tickle him with a feather."  We had so much fun with this writing activity and proudly displayed them in the hallway.  

In math this week, we continued our study of three dimensional shapes.  One day we practiced building cubes.  I gave the students toothpicks and marshmallows and challenged them to use them to make a cube.  They did a great job with this!  I was very proud!  

On Thursday, we studied reindeer.  We read a nonfiction book about reindeer and took a look at Santa's reindeer on www.reindeercam.com.  

We put the information we learned into a reindeer tree map.

Then we did a reindeer glyph.  Once we finished our reindeer, we graphed and analyzed our data using bar graphs and tally marks.  

Thanks again to everyone who helped our with our Holiday Workshop!  One more workshop day tomorrow, then Polar Express day on Tuesday!  Don't forget to wear your favorite jammies!  :)