Zipping Through to Holiday Break

This week we did some winter activities and of course we couldn't wait to see what Zippy did this week!

Zippy the Elf
Zippy was quite entertaining this week. Since Zippy came last week the students have been documenting his daily position and we have been making a timeline in the hallway.

Check out where Zippy was at this week!

 On Monday he was sitting on the tree branch over blue table.

 On Tuesday he was riding Pig and then later he had captured a box of treats with his lasso!

 On Wednesday he was practicing his counting with Pig and Rudy.

 On Thursday he had found the red paint and got his handprints all over the room!

On Friday he was all about the "peace promise". He had a sign that said " peace baby" and brought treats for peaceful friends.

We can't wait to see what Zippy does on the last week before the holidays!

Bakery Investigation Treat Models
We started our centers for our bakery investigation a week ago. I will post more about the baking investigation soon, however I wanted to post some pictures of the students making their treat models with air dry clay. Each group signed up to be on a team and I have been working with them to create their models. When we get back from break we will paint them and display them.

Making Snowmen
Today we read the story Snowballs by Lois Ehlert. It's a great book that shows snowmen created with natural materials. The kids loved it! After we read they had to make their own snowman or woman. They used white and construction paper but had to do all the cutting and designing. The only requirement was 3 snowballs. They did great!

Next week will be a week of learning and holiday fun!

Zippy the Elf

Our elf on the shelf arrived this week. He came on Monday. I was out sick so I missed all the fun but Ms. West read the book and the students chose a name for him.  They decided to name him Zippy. Everyday Zippy comes to our classroom to visit and check on the students' behavior. He is full of magic and can zip around really fast! We can't touch him or he will lose all his magic. Each night he goes back to the North Pole to report to Santa. He has been in some very sneaky places this week...

He was hanging from our lanterns with binoculars!

He was on top of our tree dressed as an angel!

He was in our tissue box resting with a teddy bear!

We got an extra surprise today because it was National Cookie Day. While the students were at specials Zippy passed out alphabet cookies and sprinkled some magic on them. Yum!

We can't wait to see what Zippy will do next week!

Paper Machete Pumpkins

I promised I would post pictures of the paper machete pumpkins when they were done. We finished them up about two weeks ago. Here they are displayed in the hall. The students used different colors to represent the different colors of pumpkins and they were attached on a "vine" (green yarn). They also cut one in half and labeled its parts! Awesome job!
*These photos were also added into the original post about our pumpkin investigation.

Thankful to a Wonderful Short Week!

We may have had a short week but it was a BUSY few days! This week we worked on many little projects to celebrate Thanksgiving and prepare for winter.

Ms. West made pumpkin bread with the kids to close out our pumpkin investigation and begin our cooking investigation.  They did all the mixing to follow the recipe!

We also read a story sponsored by the LINKS and the Books Alive program called: The Big Orange Splot. It was about a man who gets a big orange splot dropped on his house and he decides to paint the whole outside. His neighbors want him to paint it back the way it was so all of the houses will look the same but they soon realize all their houses can look different and they paint theirs too.  To connect to the story we had all the students at the table paint their house the same color. Next week they will decorate their house to make it look the way they want it to.

Today we worked on some projects to get our room ready for winter and the holiday season. We wanted the students to make holiday paper chains to hang from the ceiling but we weren't sure how they would do... But as usual they surprised us! Each table was given two sets of holiday paper strips and a stapler. They worked so hard to make the patterns with their table mates. We hung each chain above the table that made it. Great job!

A Sweet Trip

We have finally completed our pumpkin investigation and are moving into our baking study. To kick of our new investigation we took a field trip to Ele Cake Co. Our wonderful tour guide Ms. Heather took the students through the store section as well as the back where all the treats were made then students got to make their own turkey cookie! They did a very good job being respectful to the staff and customers and asked some really great questions.

Today we started drawing plans and making signs for our classroom bakery. We can't wait to see how it turns out!