Weekly Wrap-Up -> Dec. 3-7

I think you can safely say that Christmas has officially arrived in our classroom!
We started the week by setting up Santa's Workshop at our Dramatic Centre:

Thank you to all the parents who donated items (cards, wrapping paper, bows, boxes, etc.) for our Santa's Workshop!

You can check out my Santa's Workshop pack on TpT by clicking the picture below if you are interested:

Retell the Christmas Story
I was gifted this beautiful Little People Nativity set a few years back from a former student and I use it each year to have students retell the story of Christmas. We added some loose parts as well as logs for students to build with.

Christmas Tree Patterns
Students were invited to use buttons to decorate the Christmas tree by using patterns.

Geoboards - Make a Shape/Number/Letter
Since we are learning about 2D shapes these geoboards are the perfect tool for students to practice creating a shape using elastics. I even saw students making letters and numbers!

Christmas Gift.....SHHHHH!!!
I was going to hold off posting our Christmas gift this year but we are actually making a couple of things. This is our big one - which we started at the end of September and worked on each week. You might have seen these before....handprint calendars.

They are adorable and make a perfect gift! We tend to make these every few years at Christmas time.
I downloaded the templates from Things to Share and Remember. Click {here} to visit her site and download them for free if you are still looking for something to make.

Christmas Wrapping Paper
We made our own Christmas wrapping paper using foam stampers and paint. So easy and adorable!

Reindeer Directed Drawing

With our Gr. 3 Reading/Tech. buddies, we decided to do an art activity this week (it was such a treat!). Yes, I'll admit it was a little difficult having 45 children create these reindeer, but the children were wonderful about waiting their turn to use the materials and share.

I drew it step by step on the Bright Links board and students followed along. Then they outlined in brown pastel if they wanted and used watercolour paints.

I got this idea from the ARTventurous blog.

How cute are these reindeer?

Christmas Sensory Bin

Our sensory bin was filled with coloured rice (red, green and white) and we added Christmas trinkets from the dollar store for students to sort, scoop and explore.

Christmas Scents

I have done this activity before using a variety of other herbs and spices but wanted to make it more festive. My colleague brought in a variety of scented oils and I used a few to fill up these small glass jars. Students were encouraged to smell each jar and record their findings.

(The jars were filled with peppermint (oil), orange (oil), lavender (oil), cinnamon, and cocoa.

You can download this recording sheet for FREE by clicking the picture below. Just add your own scents!

In our math small group this week, we worked on building shapes using pattern blocks and these cards.

With the math intervention group, students identified basic 2D shapes and glued pictures into this booklet.

Both of these activities can be found in my All About 2D Shapes unit on TpT. Once we wrap up 2D Shapes in the next week or so I will do a large post all about it!

In the letter i.d./sounds group, students use this Beginning Sounds Train set to match sounds to the letter. I got this years ago from Wintergreen Learning Materials.

Pocket Chart - Christmas Lights

I decided to put out our poem for the week, Christmas Lights, at the pocket chart station. Students had to rebuild the poem one word at a time. I love how the Year 2 students (SK) worked with Year 1 (JK) students to complete this.