Christmas Celebration

We had a joyous time on our last day before Christmas vacation.
Thanks to all the families that provided snacks and goody bags.
Merry Christmas to all!

Sadie, Miguel, Jonathan, Mitchell, K.J., and Adan

Juana, Isabella, Luc's mom, Luc, and Desiray

Bradley, Josie, Catherine, Daelin, Arianah, and Aubrey

Cooper, Cooper's mom, Bella, Dustin, Dustin's grandmother, Meryck, and Henry

Isabella, her grandmother and Luc

Cooper and his mom

Our set of twins, Dustin and Desiray, with their grandmother

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Reindeer Cookies

For our Funky Food we made Reindeer Cookies.
We read the book Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett.
We had to make them fast, so I didn't get any other pictures.
It was also our pajama day. FUN!

Gingerbread Houses

We read some more Gingerbread Man books. This time is was Jan Brett's The Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends.

After reading Gingerbread Friends, we made our own Gingerbread houses. Here are Bella and Henry showing us the gingerbread house in the book. Thanks to Henry's family for providing the ingredients for this Funky Food Activity.

Luc and Desiray's houses

Cooper, Bella, and Dustin's houses

Aubrey, Josie, and Bradley's houses

Catherine, Daelin, and Arianah's houses

Miguel, Mitchell, and K.J.'s houses

Adan and Jonathan's houses

Isabella and Juana's houses

Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man

We have read a lot of Gingerbread Man stories. We made a chart of all the characters in each book we read. Then we could easily compare and contrast the different versions of the Gingerbread Man.

The biggest difference was The Cajun Gingerbread Boy with an alligator as the bad guy.
All the other stories we read had the fox in it.
And The Gingerbread Girl, well, it had a girl instead of a boy but I guess you figured that out!

After we read all those books, we made our own Gingerbread Men.
Here we are decorating our men.
Josie, Bradley, Catherine, Daelin, and Arianah

Luc, Jonathan, K.J., and Adan

Next, we took our decorated man to Mrs. Martin.
She put him in the oven and we watched him shrink and almost jump out of the oven.

Look how they changed.

We then got to take our new gingerbread man to make a necklace.
We could make a pattern or do whatever we wanted with the beads.
Bradley, Daelin, Jonathan, and Mitchell

Thanksgiving Feast with our Friends and Family

We had a yummy spread for our Thanksgiving Feast. The Spunky Monkeys want to thank all the families that provided the food for our feast.

Look at all that food. We had more than enough food for all of us.

Look at our beautiful decorations.
As we learned about Fall, we made several items decorating the table.
During our unit on pumpkins, we made pumpkins out of pantyhose. Yes, I said pantyhose!
We also made gorgeous clay leaf bowls. And of course, we used our Thanksgiving Story Chains.

Here's a better look at the decorations.
Daelan said the blessing and then we ate!
We had lots of family members come and share in our feast.

Isabella and her brother, Logan and mom.

Cooper and his dad.

Mitchell and his dad.

Mrs. R, our principal, came and visited too.

Meryck and his sister, Cecilia and his dad.
Meryck's dad is in the military and we are sooo thankful for him and all he does to protect us!

Luc with his mom, dad, and sister Vada.

Bradley with his dad. Bradley's mom came too but Mrs. Martin didn't get a picture of her with Bradley.

Bella with her mom and dad. Bella is too cool!

The Story of Thanksgiving

We have been using a large story chain to help us remember the story of Thanksgiving.
So, on the last day we made one of our own.

The first chain is brown for the Pilgrims not being allowed to worship God in their own way, so they leave England. The next link is white for the sails on the Mayflower, the ship they sailed on.
The next three are blue for the long journey over the ocean to the New World.

The sailors on the Mayflower saw land, so we added a green link.
Once the Pilgrims reached the New World, they had a long cold winter,
next we added three white links.

After the long cold winter, spring finally arrived. A green link is next.
During the spring, the Pilgrims met the Native Americans. The Native Americans helped them learn how to live off the new land. A tan colored link is added for the Native Americans.

That fall, the harvest was plentiful. The Pilgrims wanted to have a Thanksgiving Feast with their new friends. We add a brown for turkey, orange for pumpkins,
red for cranberries, and yellow for corn.

Mitchell working on his story chain.

Mrs. Smith is almost finished helping us with our story chains.

We review the story after we finish our chains.

Josie showing off her story chain.

Squanto's Corn

We have been learning about the Native Americans and the Pilgrims.
We read about Squanto and how he helped the Pilgrims plant corn.

Our Funky Food was making our own Sqanto's Corn.

First we made the soil. Dustin is pouring his soil out.

Isabella is adding the corn seed in her soil.

Arianah then added the famous fish.

Henry is covering the fish and corn seed with the soil.

Now we are all ready to eat.
Dustin, Catherine, Bella, Meryck, and Henry

Arianah, Aubrey, Jonathan, Daelin, and Bradley

Vayla, Cooper, Mitchell, and K.J.

Isabella, Desiray, Miguel, and Juana