Polar Express!

 

 All Aboard, The Polar Express! We started our unit with a Shared Writing activity. We read the story, then wrote "I Believe, Merry Christmas!" on our Polar Express pictures.

One of their Polar Express pictures.

As we read the story again, I had the students sitting in our classroom Polar Express engine. After the story, they found Silver Bells and their Golden tickets underneath their chairs. How happy they were to find them.

 

We had our Polar treat of Donuts and Hot Chocolate! 

 After our Polar treats, we had our gift exchange. We prayed and thanked God for the gifts. We talked about how there are some children who will not be able to have gifts and that we should be grateful for all the things that we have, no matter what it may be.

Our Reading Winter Wonderland in my Reading Center.

Christmas Around the World!

 We used our world map to point out the countries we will be traveling to for this unit. We put yarn to mark the country that we will travel to along with a sticker.

 We traveled to Mexico. We learned that in Mexico the children make pinatas and sing Feliz Navadad. They tell stories about the Christmas Flower, the poinsettia. We made a pinata and poinsettias and colored the countries flag.

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 Next, we visited Israel. We learned that in Israel the children celebrate Hanukkah. And we learned how the holiday of Hanukkah started with the Great Maccabees story.

 We learned how to play the Driedel game. We used Skittles instead of gold coins. 

We learned that Gimel means all, Shin means put in the pot , Nun means nothing and Hay means half.

We tasted Latkes. We learned that Latkes are a traditional dish for Jewish families to share during Hanukkah. Latkes are potatoes pancakes. I brought them form Too Jays, they came with Applesauce and Sour Cream. Yummm!

We tries them with the applesauce and the sour cream. 

Sour Cream won their vote! They loved the Latkes!

We traveled to Sweden. We learned that St. Lucia was a little girl who dressed up and gave out the first gifts of the Christmas Holiday. She wore a wreath with 6 candles on it, called the Advent candles. We made an Advent Candle hat.

The children put their shoes outside the front door on Christmas Eve. They place hay and a carrot for the Camels, and St. Nick would leave them candy and a Yule Log for them. We put our shoes outside our classroom with some hay for the "camels".

When we awoke from nap time, we found that there was candy placed inside our shoes! Some of my students didn't like the idea of candy in their shoe...!

We traveled to Africa and learned about Kwanzaa. We learned that Kwanzaa is a man-made tradition that celebrates unit and love in the family. We made a Kinora and colored the countries flag.

Our last trip was to France. We learned that in France they celebrate the Nativity Scene. We learned that they say, Joyuex Noel for Merry Christmas. We made a Nativity Scene and colored the flag.

We ended our Christmas Around the World unit with a Christmas Tree I Spy! We decorated our Christmas trees and counted the ornaments.