Sorry about the very long delay. Things have been super busy.
As part of our Who We Are International Baccalaureate unit, we talked about the holidays and how many different cultures celebrate different holidays and with different traditions. We talked about Thanksgiving and how one of the ways to celebrate Thanksgiving is by sharing food and being thankful. We read the story Stone Soup as a class. Then as a whole school, each class brought in an ingredient and we had Stone Soup together as a whole school.
Just to catch everyone up on our Thanksgiving unit last week:
We used the Scholastic First Thanksgiving Virtual Field trip to learn about the Wompanoag Native American tribe that made friends with the Pilgrims and helped them survive the winter. We compared the Pilgrims Daily life to the Wompanoags Daily Life. The comparisons included food, houses, clothing, chores, and games. We also created pilgrim hats and turned them into headbands that we wore out to the buses.
During math we’ve been learning about shapes and how to design patterns. We created a native american head and shirt. Then we used real pattern block to practice making our own design for the shirts. Then we used paper pattern blocks that we glued to decorate the Wompanoag’s shirt. Last we counted how many of each pattern block we used and wrote it on the recording sheet. You can find a FREE COPY of this activity here.
Last week was Thanksgiving and we did many activities related to the holiday. We read the story I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie and used pictures from Texas Kindergarten Teacher to retell the sequence of the story in our bellies.
For partner reading, students read the emergent reader book Thanksgiving and then completed the sentence at the end of the book writing something about Thanksgiving that they liked.
We continued to learn about food groups and the importance of having a well balanced meal. We watched Sid the Science Kid’s video on food groups where the students sorted their lunch into different food groups.
After we watched the video we made our own lunch boxes and picked out a “balanced meal” that contain all five food groups. Students pick 3-4 items and put them into a cut out lunchbox.
On Friday we read The Very First Thanksgiving Day. We wrote about the different vegetables, fruits, and meats we would put in our cornucopia and trace and cut our own foods.
We read the book Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland. Then we brainstormed things that we were thankful for and wrote about it on a big turkey paper. Then students partner read the emergent book A Funny Bird and students circled the sight words that they’ve learned, then colored the pictures.
As we finished up our Thanksgiving activities last week, we read some more books about the first Thanksgiving and learned more about Native Americans and Pilgrims. For math we’ve been learning about 2D and 3D shapes, and how to make bigger shapes from smaller shapes. We made Native Americans designs from pattern block shapes.
During poetry time, we read the poem Five Little Turkeys using retelling cards and turkey pictures. Then students filled in missing words using number word sight word knowledge. The Five Little Turkeys book and cards came from Kindergarten Fever’s TpT.
Today we learned about the first Thanksgiving by reading The Pilgrim’s First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern, and we retold the first thanksgiving by putting pictures back into the correct order. The First Thanksgiving Sequence activity can be found here.
We also finished up our discussion on nutrition and read the emergent reader book called Thanksgiving – “I Like” Series. Students partner read the story and completed the extra page at the end. Finally we made toilet paper roll turkeys with colored tissue paper and paper plates as the backing.
As we continue to learn about food groups and nutrition we focused on each food group in depth. Students drew and colored foods that belonged in each group (from https://www.choosemyplate.gov/) while learning the benefits of each food group using our “My Food Groups” book. Since the book is geared more towards first grade, we only did certain pages.
We also started transitioning into our Thanksgiving theme by reading the book; The Very First Thanksgiving Day. Then we made our own Thanksgiving Cornucopia tracing and cutting different, fruits, vegetables, and meat.
Last week we finished up a fun unit full of Thanksgiving activities. For our word work we created a flip book with repetitive sight words and things that you do on Thanksgiving.
We also read Thanksgiving books on things that we like. Then students used their knowledge of sight words to write sentences using the word ‘we’.
For math we read the story “The Great Turkey Race” discussed the problem and solution of the story. Then we created our own math story problems using addition and pictures of turkeys for the visual.
Finally we learned about the life of Pilgrims and Wampanoags on Scholastic.com’s First Thanksgiving website. Students made designs on Wampanoags using pattern block cutouts.
We read the story “Thanksgiving Day” and learned about the very first Thanksgiving. Then we cut and glued pictures that illustrated the first thanksgiving in the correct sequence. For our art and writing we made TLC art pilgrims and wrote about what we were thankful for.
