Merry Christmas! (M, 10, Green)

Our theme for the third week of December was "Merry Christmas" and we focused on the letter Mm, the number 10 and the color green.

  

We read this week: How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky
                               Duck and Goose, It's Time for Christmas by Tad Hills
                               The Christmas Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
                               Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
                               Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas by Julia Rawlinson

Our question of the week was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I like to think that I know my kids very well, but some of these answers were a surprise to me, and Moms and Dads!

For our theme of the week, we had fun getting ready for the holiday!

I drew "gingerbread houses" onto paper bags that the kids colored however they wanted. These are what I put their ornaments from last week in to give to their parents. They were a big hit!

Using just beads, green pipe cleaners and some string we made really cute and artsy tree ornaments. I hung them on our class tree to make it a little more festive. I found the idea here.

We also had our school Christmas party! Santa came too!

We talked about the color green, and we sang "G-R-E-E-N" to the tune of "Old MacDonald."

"There’s a color we all know,

G-R-E-E-N.

It’s the color that means “Go!”

G-R-E-E-N.

Oh, grass is green and lettuce is green,

Leaves and spinach and peas are green.

There’s a color we all know,

G-R-E-E-N."

I found it here.

When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk

around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is green. The tricky thing is that they have to bring different things, no duplicates allowed! Here is what we found for the color green.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 10.

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see.

I gave each student 10 M&M's to count and then color on their paper. The best part? They got to eat them!

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Mm from this book.

We also did this worksheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book.

The students also wrote in their journals for the letter M.

We turned a M into a Mouse! This book is great.

We made a short book all about "Monkey's Lunch" that I got from this Mailbox book.

When learning about the phases of the moon, whats a better way to practice than with Oreos!

I found this video about Mallomars and another that really shows how the marshmallow cookies are made. Then we all ate one!

I cut up small pieces of red, peach and white construction paper so we could made Santa Mosaics. I introduced the kids to mosaic art, and showed them some examples. Then we talked about how to make a picture of Santa. I love how each one is unique!

For our alphabet wall we used dot paint to decorate mangoes.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

We had a birthday this week! It's all about Batman.

Up next week: "Kwanzaa and Happy New Year!"