The Mitten
We have been talking about the winter season and working on related activities. We read two "The Mitten" stories one by Jan Brett and one by Alvin Tresselt. Then we compared the similarities and differences between the two books. We learned poems and songs related to the stories. Then we made headband with the animals in the story and acted out the story of , "The Mitten".
It was our first attempt at "acting" out a story. The students had fun and we will practice and get more experience, "acting", with other stories in the coming months.
We played a game with a spinner and the animals in "The Mitten", story. Students used to spinner to graph which animal the spinner landed on the most. As a class we tallied the animal that won for each student. We discovered the mole and the badger were the winners for a tie of 4 students each. The bear and the hedgehog were not the winning animal for anyone in the class.
Melting Ice Science Experiment
We did a science experiment with a mitten to discover if an ice cube would melt faster in our hand or in a mitten and why. Fourteen students guessed it would melt faster in their mitten. Three guessed it would melt faster in their hand. We discovered it melted faster in our hand and decided it was because our hand is warm.
Animals in winter
We are learning about how animals manage in the cold winter months. We read the book. Animals in Winter, to learn about some animals and what they do. We learned the term hibernate, migrate and adapt. We did an animal sort to see which animals are hibernating, migrating or adapting.
Story workshop
We continue to create stories in story workshop each week. The last two weeks we have used winter elements to create winter stories. The students are doing an excellent job using their inventive spelling to write the stories they have created with the materials they chose.