Dashing Through December!

PLEASE READ ALL THE WAY THROUGH FOR *NEW* INFORMATION!

We had a ton of fun this week extended our learning about fables/folktales - and all of our work with story elements - by reading and comparing versions of The Gingerbread Man stories to wrap up this unit. We read: The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Girl, and The Gingerbread Pirates. Our class really enjoyed these stories and did a great job recording their notes in their Gingerbread comparison notebook. We focused on telling the differences between the characters, setting, problem, solution, and adventures.

Then....we had lots of fun with our Gingerbread STEM challenges! Students were challenged to build a boat that floats to help the Gingerbread Man get away from the fox at the river, and also to build a hideout to get away from the fox. Students worked on the boat in teams to plan the design, build, test, and rebuild if necessary. Individually, students built a hideout using the same process: plan, build, test, rebuild/improve.

It was fun to hear the conversations and thought processes:

"Legos don't float; let's not use those to build our boat."

"We need tape on the legos to make the boat more waterproof."

"Awe, man! Our boat is too big for the container of water. We have to rebuild!"

"It's sinking!! We need something on the bottom of the boat so that the paper doesn't get wet."

"It's too heavy----it's sinking!"

Students worked great in teams - and some teams even made SeeSaw videos to tell about this challenge.

This group seemed so surprised that their boat actually floated!

After making a boat out of paper that didn't quite work in the water, this group opted for straws and built a raft.

These boys were so proud of their boat and loved proving that legos DO float!

This week we also practiced writing our own story problems and having our partners solve them. It was fun to have students generate their own math problems instead of always solving problems that are already written. It really gets the brain power going!

Weekly spelling word lists start December 11th. This time, the test will be on Friday. Please be sure to watch our blog and the parent letters that come home to know when spelling tests will be. They may not always land on a Friday. At school, we will practice the words in whole group in several ways, and independently, students will have lots of practice time in multi-sensory ways. We like to build the words with magnets, use dry erase boards, use pocket chart letter cards, write in the sand trays, use letter beads, rainbow write, use shaving cream on a tray, and much more! There are so many fun ways for your child to practice the skill beyond paper/pencil and memorization.

Our lists will be posted under the documents tab of our classroom website, but also sent home weekly. If you lose your copy - check the website to print or write down the words. We are focusing on the long e spellings with double /ee/, as well as magic e (long vowels). The tricky words are the words that are not spelled regularly and do not follow typical patterns. Tricky words are ones that we just have to know and cannot 'stretch our sounds' to spell them.

I hope everyone got out there to enjoy the snow and wintery fun that is finally here!!

See you tomorrow!