My apologies for taking such a long break since our last classroom post! Between our long Christmas break, readjusting to our school routine, and adding a new friend to our classroom - it has been a very busy time in our classroom. Here is a look at some of the things we have been working on at school.
The Gingerbread Man
Before Christmas break we had some fun reading the story of The Gingerbread Man. We talked about all the different characters in the story and also did some sequencing of events as the gingerbread man travels through the story. Mrs. Frazee planned a group speech activity where the children each were a different character and acted out the story. Everyone's favorite part seemed to be, "Run, Run, as Fast as you can!"
Our social skills group also included our work on the story by allowing the students to decorate their own gingerbread cookies. The students had to appropriately request the different toppings and frostings from their peers and adults.
Christmas Tree:
The students created their own ornaments for our Christmas tree this year. Some students even enjoyed helping to set up the tree. They showed a great amount of responsibility in respecting the classroom tree this year. (It can be so tempting to pull on!)
Word Study
This week we began a new set of words for our word study time. Our word family words end in -ick. You can always find the current words in the box on the right hand side of the blog. Currently we are working on sick, lick, kick, stick, like, he, she.
The Mitten
Since returning from break we have been working with the story The Mitten by Jan Brett. In the story the little boy Nicki loses his white mitten in the snow. Several animals make the mitten their home causing it to stretch bigger and bigger until finally the bear sneezes and the mitten goes flying into the sky for Nicki to find.
We have used the story during our Reader's Workshop time to work on the concept of characters and to practice some sequencing and retelling. Mrs. Frazee also incorporated the story into her speech centers. You can listen to the story on youtube by searching for "The Mitten by Jan Brett". There are several different versions of it being read aloud.
For our social work group on Thursday of this week, Mrs. Frazee and Ms. Weston brought a GIANT mitten (two sleeping bags zipped together) and we acted out the story. It may be my favorite activity we have done so far this year! The kids had so much fun acting out the story. Since so many of the students have goals to work on using question words, before each animal could enter the mitten they had to request "May I come in? I'm cold!" To which the animals already in the mitten would respond, "No, there's no room." The animal would then say or sign, "Please??" and the animals in the mitten finally say, "okay!" A few students were hesitant about climbing into the mitten and also did a great job playing Nicki and his grandmother, Baba, who makes the mitten. We had so much fun acting out the story that we did it again on Friday afternoon - here are some photos!
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| Nicki is walking along and looses his mitten. |
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| Baba gives Nicki the mitten. |
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| The rabbit comes hopping along and finds the mitten. |
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| The owl comes along and asks to come inside the mitten. |
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| The rabbit telling the owl she can come in! |
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| The fox asking to come inside the mitten. |
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| The animals squeezing into the mitten. |
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| The bear sneezes and all the animals come rushing out of the mitten! |
Functional Skill
We are currently working on scissor skills during our functional skills time. The students are practicing the correct way to hold scissors in their hands. And we are also learning that scissors ONLY touch paper. On Friday, we used our scissors skills to cut out several different colors of paper to decorate mittens. The goal is that the students become more comfortable with scissors (right now, many treat them like objects that are very foreign to them), and to be able to cut things out more accurately. The students are beginning to get a little more comfortable with the scissors in their hands, but we will continue to practice how to hold them and also become more familiar with holding the paper with their other hand.
