We started off the month with a trip to the Library to listen to Mrs. Dobbins read a Christmas story to us. She is such a wonderful story teller and all of the kids thoroughly enjoyed listening to her!
During the first week of December we covered our last lesson of the curriculum before we dove head into all things Christmas. We learned about the letter L and all about the moon and stars. While learning about the moon we learned that the moon goes through one phase each month. Although we cannot see a New Moon, as it waxes (grows bigger) we see more and more of the moon until we see a....
Full Moon!
After we see the Full Moon, the moon begins waning (growing smaller) until it completes its cycle and becomes the new moon again.
We learned that a crescent moon looks like the white of our thumb nail!
During this week we also learned all about the stars and constellations. We even made our own constellations using the first letter of our first name!
Now for my favorite part of the month, all of the crafts!
For our bulletin board each child painted a present and made a paper plate angel to help us decorate. Look at these sweet faces!
During the month we learned all about Advent. Each week we added a candle the wreath we made from our handprints and learned the meanings of the Hope, Peace, Joy, Love and Christ candles.
Our 4th grade reading buddies visited us and shared a story about the history and meaning of the Candy Cane. We learned how we can remember Jesus' sacrifice and forgiveness just by looking at a Candy Cane at Christmas time.
They then helped us make pretty candy canes from red and white beads.
The last letter we learned for the semester was L. The classes favorite L craft was our lady bug page for our Alphabet Journal. We had some lady bugs with LOTS of spots...
just a few spots...
tiny spots...
and BIG spots!
My absolute favorite craft of the month was our elf crafts! You cannot look at these and not smile!
One of the class' favorite weeks was the week we spent talking about Gingerbreads. They all loved sharing their gingerbread people! We had:
Superman, a Princess, a Veterinarian,
Batman, a Ninja, a Ninja Turtle, Rapunzel,
Superman, a Princess,
A cowboy, Superman, and a Firefighter!
Our favorite activity of the week was going on our Gingerbread Hunt. Our class discovered a special box in our classroom with a clue that lead us on a hunt to the...
Library! From there we were lead by another clue to the...
Office! Our next clue lead us to the...
Cafeteria! Our final clue lead us back to...
Our classroom! Where an entire box of yummy gingerbread men were waiting to be eaten. Yum!
By far our favorite Gingerbread book of the 10 or so we read was the Gingerbread Pirate!
Argh, Matey!
One afternoon we got to see the 1st grades Christmas Presentation. We even got to see a few of our older siblings perform! We really enjoyed all of the singing and silly costumes!
For our windows we made another candy cane craft. Although we didn't really care for the taste of candy canes, we loved how they looked in our window!
Another of our gingerbread activities was If I was a Gingerbread Boy/Girl. Each child drew a picture of themselves as a gingerbread person, what they would have to run away from in their own story, and what their house would look like. There were some very creative stories and characters to run away from. Some of our gingerbreads had to run away from Zombies and Werewolves!
Our craft for the main building was of what we think Rudolph would look like if he got caught peeking in our windows at night!
Our last week of school we learned about the history of St. Nicholas and how he became a saint after giving selflessly to less fortunate families around Christmas time. One of the European traditions of St. Nicholas is putting your shoes outside on Christmas Eve instead of hanging a stocking. We heard that good girls and boys get their shoes filled with candy so we placed our shoes outside at nap time to see if it would work for us.
And it did! We all awoke from our nap to find pieces of candy in our shoes!
Our guided drawing activity for Christmas was of Santa Claus. As I gave directions and drew my Santa on our smart board, each child drew and colored their own on a piece of paper at their desk. They turned out completely adorable! We had big Santas, Little Santas, old Santas, and a very young Santa with a black beard.
To help decorate our classroom tree each child colored an ornament on their favorite color of paper. We have pictures of snow men, Santa in his sleigh, elves, snowy mountains, Christmas trees, families, and even a lawn mower! Can you guess which picture your Hoot drew?
Our last full day of school before the Christmas holiday was spent on the Polar Express! We all enjoyed watching the movie in our jammies and our treat of popcorn and hot chocolate!
We had a great month! Check out the next post for pictures of our party and our Santa pictures!
