Happy Schedulin’ Sunday!  This week we are kicking off my most favorite research project of the year:  Holidays Around The World!  We are hopping on Air Smorgie and jetting around the world for 14 days of Christmas Around The World!   Plus we’re kicking off the next component of the TKS Bootcamp curriculum, Blends Bootcamp.  In math, we’re working on addition tasks and story problems!

Lesson Plans For Holidays Around The World, Blends and Digraphs and Addition

Here are our lesson plans for Christmas Around The World, addition and digraphs!    Click the image to download my lesson plans!

Morning Meeting

This week our morning greeting is Duck Duck Goose!   This is  a very active greeting where we run around the circle and greet each other!

You can find all of the details in our Morning Meeting Greeting Resource.

Our morning meeting activity this week is Quiz Quiz Trade.  This week we will be reviewing numbers!

You can find our Quiz Quiz Trade resource here!

Blends BOOTCAMP

This week we are kicking off  Blends BOOTCAMP!  This week we are starting with digraph TH and we will spend all week on this digraph.  We will do a digraph a week and then we move to blends after Christmas break.

As with all components of TKS Bootcamp, we start with the circle chart.  Then we will work on building and writing TH words.  We will also sort TH and F words.  During small groups, we’re using the Word Family Bootcamp Decodable readers to work on our decoding and blending skills!  These books have been a huge hit with the kids and have really boosted their confidence in reading and writing words!

For more on Blends Bootcamp, check out the brand new TKS BOOTCAMP website!

Holidays Around The World Research Project

It is finally time.  Time to embark on our 14 day adventure around the world as we learn how other cultures and countries celebrate Christmas Around The World and Holidays Around The World.  People, this is my MOST FAVORITE research project of the year.  It is a must do.  We cover social studies standards, research and writing standards.  We learn languages and taste foods and do art.  AND we stay engaged right up until Christmas break!  SCORE!

Each child completes their research journal as we visit each country.  But to visit each country, you need an airplane.  Our airplane is Air Smorgie.  And it looks like Google Earth.    We fly from our school to each country before we can learn about that country.  And, this is so important, you have to fly home at the end of the day.

And we all know you can’t board the plane without a passport and airline ticket!  Each day every child receives an airline ticket with their name, their seat assignment and the country we’re visiting.  We color and stamp our passports as well.  (These are all included in our Holidays Around The World creation!)

For each country we do a read aloud that relates to that country.  This is not necessarily an informational text.  After the read aloud we view an informational PowerPoint about the country that is full of facts and information.  We use that information to complete our graphic organizer and write in our research journal.

For each country we also do an art project and incorporate aspects of the culture with food and fun!

For more details on Holidays Around The World, check out these posts:

Math:  Addition Story Problems

In math we are working on addition story problems with math tasks.  This week the students will work in pairs to solve addition math tasks.  Then they will explain to the class how they solved the problem!  

Mad Science Thursday

This week our  Mad Science science experiment is Christmas Slime!  We use contact solution, baking soda, baby oil and Christmas confetti!

Foodie Fun Friday

This week we will enjoy foods that represent what we learned about each country and culture!

Swiss cake rolls=yule logs

Chocolate Cake= buche de noel

Tamales

crab dip (seafood=Australia)

Pantonne (Italy)

These are the creations we are using in our classroom this week!

Christmas Around The World Freebies!

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