Ah, Sunday! How I loathe thee. Sunday means tomorrow is Monday. Monday means back to work. That means it’s the day to write lesson plans and create activities to rock the world of your little monsters. It’s a small miracle of technology that every Sunday teachers don’t cause Pinterest to crash!
After a great pancake date with the Mr. this morning, I am in my office dining room kitchen (my office is now a desk in the closet upstairs that hides my printer!) preparing a kindergarten smorgasboard of ideas and lessons and craftivities to rock the little monsters world. And it’s GINGERBREAD WEEK!!!!!!!
This week I am going to be doing all things gingerbread! I am excited to unveil my Run Run As Fast As You Can Gingerbread activities to my monsters! They’re going to LOVE IT! And I love gingerbread man week so we’re going to have a blast!
Here are my weekly plans!
Monday
This week we will not celebrate the letter E! E says /e/ not A or I. And to celebrate, we will be making an elf hat! E for Elf! You know that there is never a week without a silly hat in Mr. Greg’s class!
Today we kick off our gingerbread man adventure with the book, The Gingerbread Boy! I bought this big book two years ago so we always kick off our big gingerbread man week with a big book! What can I say, we do it bigger at Monsters, Inc!
After reading the story, we will start our story comparison chart! It’s a simple chart divided into 5 columns (5 days=5 different books). At the top I glue a picture of the book cover (yes, I make a photocopy so the photocopy police can come get me!). We list the characters in the story (who did the gingerbread man/boy/girl run from) and what happens at the end.
We will also be reading our shared reading poem, “I Ran Away From!” This is a fun poem that builds great fluency skills! We read it several times and each time, I change out the word and picture for what we ran away from! The very last time we read through the poem, I surprise the monsters with a picture of Mr. Greg making a scary face! They go WILD for this! And beg to read more. Did you hear that?! They beg to read more. Here is my million dollar idea: Make funny pictures of Mr. Greg and sell them. Then kids everywhere will beg to read!
The monsters will create a gingerbread man tree map! We will generate ideas on what the gingerbread man does, what he has and who he runs from! The students will then complete their own tree map.
In math we are taking our subtraction to the next level! We will now be working with equations! I always start off this phase of subtraction by pulling my hair out in advance writing the first number of the equation in GREEN (green means go) and that’s how many objects (Legos) we start with. Then I write the minus sign and the second number in red (red means stop) and that’s how many we take away! We will do this same routine all week. It’s a very challenging concept but the colors and repetition seem to help a lot! What are your ideas for teaching subtraction?
And it’s a school day so that means it’s craftivity time! We are going to create a gingerbread display and today we are going to start with the gingerbread house! The students will cut out their pieces and decorate their house how they want! Super fun!
Tuesday
Our gingerbread man week continues with our second gingerbread man book, The Gingerbread Man!
After reading, we will add this story to our story comparison chart! We will also read our poem, “I Ran Away From!” including a funny picture of Mr. Greg! Another way to make this poem engaging is to add in pictures of students and other staff members!! Keep them on their toes and engaged! As soon as they see a picture of their friends, they will become hysterical! Try it!
We will use our tree maps to complete a predictable chart: _______ ran away from ________.
We will continue our subtraction nightmare today wit more color coded equations and more hair pulling from Mr. Greg! After we practice today, we will also do a practice page (not a worksheet….shhhh!) to see if we are gaining an understanding of subtraction. Click on the picture for your freebie!
E week does not continue with our phonics watches from The Moffatt Girls! The monsters color them and wear them around. If someone asks what time it is, they have to respond with an /e/ word! Tip: Laminate the watches FIRST then let students use sharpies to color them!
Our gingerbread man week craftivity craziness continues with our gingerbread man craftivity! I give the students a large gingerbread man template that they cut out. And then I provide them with various art materials and let them create! These will be added to their gingerbread houses!
Wednesday
Gingerbread man week runs on (Does anyone remember the Oprah theme song about running on?!…hello ADD moment!)
Our gingerbread story today is The Gingerbread Man!
After reading, we will add this story to our comparison chart! Then we will read our poem, “I Ran Away From!” to practice our fluency!
We will publish our sentences today. The students will write their sentence and illustrate their page! And we will put them together in a new class book!
We will take a subtraction break today for some Gingerbread measuring! We will use my gingerbread measurement pack to measure how big our gingerbread pictures are! We will use peppermints and Hershey Kisses to measure how tall our pictures are! We will complete a class chart and each of us will complete our own recording chart!
Click on the picture to get the pack! And click on the recording sheet to get a free copy of the recording sheet!
Gingerbread craftivity craziness continues with a gingerbread girl craftivity to go with our house and boy!
Thursday
Gingerbread man week continues with The Gingerbread Girl!
After we read the story we will add the details to our comparison chart! We will read out shared reading poem and laugh and giggle! We will do a picture sort for not celebrating the letter E!
We will create a gingerbread man tree map for characters, settings and plot!
Gingerbread measurement continues today with measuring area and perimeter! Yes, in kindergarten! I teach my monsters that perimeter is around the edges or around the outside and area is covering the whole picture. We use peppermints and Hershey Kisses as our measuring tool! We will complete our class recording chart and our own recording sheets. And yes, after we measure the perimeter and area we eat the candy! NUM NUM!!!! Chocolate and peppermints are my FAVE!
Today’s craftivity is a Pinterest inspired painting fiasco!
Visit A Place Called Kindergarten for more great ideas and art projects!
I will draw the gingerbread man shape for the students. They will trace their gingerbread man using a black crayon (thick lines, people! Push hard!) Then they will use their crayons to add strips of colors on the arms and legs and any details. Next we will paint our gingerbread man brown (red and green make brown!) and the students will paint the background any color they choose!
To make fun and cheap watercolors we us Kool-Aid! I know, right?! It is pretty and smells good!
Pour the kool aid powder into 1 section of a muffin man. Add 1 tablespoon of warm water and mix! Then students can paint! SMELLS SO GOOD!
Friday
We wrap up our Gingerbread week with the book, The Gingerbread Pirates!
After we read the story, we will add the details to our comparison chart! And now that it is Friday, we will go through the chart and circle the things that were the same in EVERY story! We will also vote on our favorite gingerbread man story and create a class graph!
We will finish up our tree maps for writing!
Math will be a simple subtraction assessment to see if we are getting it or not.
And Foodie Friday is….of course….gingerbread cookies! I will provide the cookies and decorating supplies and the monsters will decorate them! But before we eat them, we will graph our first bite! Did we bite the head? arm? leg? And then we can eat!
Of course our week is filled with picture sorts, word study, intervention and various other minor calamities that we call teachable moments! Morning meetings and morning messages! (Stay tuned tomorrow for a hilarious new greeting and the continued evolution of our morning message!)
Do you still have students who need help with their initial sounds? I know I sure do! Check out this new creation!
