The students did a wide variety of activities during the days leading up to the winter holidays.
In math, the children finished the unit on 2D and 3D geometry and began the next math unit on multiplication. Multiplication is really two concepts. One is repeated addition of equal groups and the other is the notion of multiplicative thinking. The students learned about how to represent addition of equal groups with an addition sentence (for example, 3+3+3+3=12)and as a multiplication sentence (for example, 3X4=12). They also learned about how to arrange the equal groups into rectangles or squares to show that 3X4=12 or 4X3=12. Reading 3X4 as "three groups of four" reminds students of what is actually happening in multiplication.
Later in the week, the children did an investigative writing activity using magnifying glasses. The magnifying glasses magnify objects 5X (five times) larger than their actual size. By selecting things in the class to see and writing about how the magnifying glass gives more information to their eyes, the students are able to understand the "mulitplicative thinking" part of multiplication.
This week the class had a homophone challenge that reviewed the 11 sets of homophones that we have studied so far this year. The children did worksheets, solved word search puzzles and even participated in a game show style question and answer activity to help them remember not only how to spell the homophone words but also when to use them.
If you would like to create your own word search puzzle, visit this site:
www.AtoZTeacherStuff.com/word-search-maker/wordsearch/php
The students learned about the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. They helped to make potato pancakes fried in oil called latkes, and eaten with applesauce. The children worked in pairs to figure out how many candles are needed to light the menorah over the eight days of Hanukkah and wrote down their thinking about how they solved this problem. The class also learned how to play a popular Hanukkah game called Dreidel.
The class went to the gym on Thursday to sing holiday songs with the other children in the primary division of our school. The highlight of this annual event is always when the teachers lead the students in the singing of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". (Which the class can tell you is a very old English song from 1780. So when singing this song, we are singing words from 234 years ago!)
The class began to prepare a play about King Midas, called "The Golden Touch". Working in two separate groups, the children read their parts and by the end of the week, they were organizing props and costumes.
Additional activities included a final tie-dye project and re-potting our amaryllis plant. In keeping with the winter holidays theme, each of the students also had the chance to make a small beaded penguin figure and a small graham cracker house decorated with candy!
And finally some words from Dr. Suess:
"Please tell all men,
That peace is good,
That's all that needs,
To be understood."
Books read aloud this week:
The Flying Latke by Arthur Yorinks
I Have a Little Dreidel by Maxie Baum
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Jan Brett
365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental
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