More Gingerbread!

We are fully immersed in our Gingerbread Man unit!  This week, we spent time practicing our Gingerbread Baby play.  We read The Gingerbread Girl and compared it to other versions of this tale.  Friday afternoon, we worked on a special gingerbread man/woman activity. 

This week during Reading Workshop we:

• learned that rereading a text helps improve our reading fluency.
• learned about Flippy Dolphin, a strategy that reminds us to try both vowel sounds in a word we don't know (if one vowel sound doesn't work, flip it and try the other vowel sound).
• reviewed that readers pay attention to the words and the pictures because the pictures tell us parts of the story that the words might not.
• learned to ask ourselves three questions when we think we have figured out a word: Does it look right?  Does it sound right?  Does it make sense?
• reviewed that when you are stuck on a word, you can go back to a page you know, get a running start, and reread up to the part you are stuck on.  Sometimes, getting a running start is all we need!

This week during Writing Workshop we finished publishing our pattern books.  We learned to edit our books for correct spelling of word wall words.  We reviewed that the pictures need to look accurate and help our reader figure out the word that changes on each page.  On Monday, we will share our books with one another.

This week during Math we:

• learned about measuring.  We learned that long ago before rulers and other measuring tools were invented, people could have used body parts to measure.  We used paper cutouts of our feet to practice measuring tables in our classroom.
• practiced subitizing. 
• built paper gingerbread houses out of different shapes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• colored a mystery number grid picture.  Students started with a number grid and had to listen to my directions about what color to use to color different numbers.  When we were done, the children saw Rudolph on their number grids! 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Next week will be very busy.  We will make gingerbread houses on Wednesday, perform our Gingerbread Baby play on Thursday, and have pajama day on Friday.  We will also spend time learning more about winter holidays and traditions.  I can't wait!

Have a nice weekend!
Katie