Letters to the Gingerbread Man

It is my favorite time of year!  I love to begin December with a unit on the Gingerbread Man.  One of my favorite activities is to have the students write a letter to the Gingerbread Man persuading him to stay away from the fox.  The students always come up with creative reasons and ways to help the Gingerbread Man.  To create the gingerbread craft, the students simply trace a large circle from a pattern onto brown construction paper.  Next, I have the students trace a large rectangle pattern and then round the edges for  the arms.  Students use buttons, puffy paint, construction paint circles and a bow to give the gingerbread craft some character.  This is an easy activity and the students really seem to enjoy it!

No Turkey Here!

 I love, love, love this time of year.  We had the funnest time making these cute little critter cut outs.  I used my Cricut to cut out the turkey patterns.  The students traced the patterns and then the students cut out, glued, and colored the turkeys. We just had to make a sign for each of the turkeys persuading people to eat other things on turkey day, rather than turkeys.  The responses were darling!  
       

Math Stories

 We have been making Math Stories using our classmate's names in class.  I have found that using the students names is a really effective way to capture the attention of the whole class.  We create the story, write it in our class book, and then record the problem solving and answer in our math journals.  I made the Math Story Book out of large plastic scrapbook sleeves, and metal rings.  This way pages can be inserted and removed.  Of course, the cover matches our monkey theme that is going on in our classroom!

CAFE Board

Our classroom still does the Daily Five and I continue to love it more and more each year.  This is the CAFE board that is decorated around my classroom theme.  The fabric was purchased from Hobby Lobby and I purchased the CAFE decorations from TPT.

The Bald Eagle

We have been spending this week learning about our nation's symbols.  The students definitely enjoyed learning about the Bald Eagle the best.  Deanna Jump was my inspiration to help my students create these cute eagles using their handprints and footprint.  This idea was presented in her patriotic unit that I purchased on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

Decorating with Monkeys

It has been another year of decorating the classroom with monkeys.  I still love the hues of green and yellow throughout the classroom with the little monkey characters peeking out from here and there.

Above is a pocket chart that we use on the calendar board.  It helps us focus on the days of the week, the weather, and our daily special. Also shown is our Classroom Helper chart complete with bananas.  Our classroom could not be complete with a few palm trees scattered around also!