Gingerbread Fun!

We have been incredibly busy in the Pre-First classroom.  The girls have enjoyed reading all of the different versions of the gingerbread man books and completing various activities. Here are some of the goings-on in Pre-First:

The girls made our Word Wall words with Model Magic.

We read The Gingerbread Boy  and the girls had to create a different character that the boy had to run by.  After, we compiled all of the girl's papers to make a class book.

The girls were busy in math as they kept working on their subtraction strategies by working with teeth.

We had a special Mystery Reader who came in on his birthday!

We ended our gingerbread unit this week, and what better way to celebrate then with lots and lots of sugar and icing!  Many thanks to all of the parents who came in to help with our sugary creations!

Here is a "before" picture.

During.

After.

The girls also put their finishing touches on their gingerbread decorations today.  They will be ready to go home tomorrow--make sure you find a great place to hang your daughter's gingerbread creation!

Gingerbread & Mem Fox

This morning we read The Gingerbread Girl.  The girls were then paired up and had to use a Venn diagram to compare this story to our big book version of the Gingerbread Man.

Later on, we read Snowmen at Christmas and the girls created their own winter snowman (using marshmallows) after we read the story.  

During our author's study time, we read Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild and the girls discussed character development.  Make sure you ask your daughter what Harriet was like in the book.

Catching Up with Pre-First

Temperatures are dropping, there's a chill in the air and everyone is starting to get holiday fever.  We are getting in the winter spirit in our classroom and last week we read The Snowman by Raymond Briggs.  After the story, the girls had to conference with a friend about a creative way their snowman would melt.  The girls headed back to their seats to make their own melted snowman.

Many thanks to the Pritchard's for being our Mystery Readers last week!

December has arrived and winter is right around the corner.  To get into the spirit, we read a fun winter story and decorated our bulletin board with one of our favorite winter things...mugs of hot chocolate!  The girls adorned their mugs with snowy images then described why they like winter.  Their own little cup of hot chocolate helped inspire their creative juices.

We started our gingerbread unit and today the girls listened to The Gingerbread Man big book for the second time.  Then they were then put into pairs and had to sequence the story with their partner.

Subtraction and New Author

The girls began a new math unit on subtraction today.  We read The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? to grab their attention, then used a cookie jar and cookies to model subtraction problems as a whole class.

The girls were given their own cookie jars and cookies to help them independently solve subtraction problems.  The girls enjoyed this lesson although they were slightly disappointed there were no actual cookies handed out.

We have a new Author of the Month in Pre-First.  She is from the land down under, she was raised in Africa, and is one of the best known authors in Australia.....she is Mem Fox!  The girls were so excited to learn about our new author.  We read Good Night. Sleep Tight and went to Mem Fox's website to learn all about her.  In the next few weeks, we will be reading more books that Mem Fox has written and complete a variety of activities.