Five for Funday ~ Gingerbread Elves

I am posting my weekly recap of our classroom happenings a little late. Although, since Kacey at Doodle bugs is taking a break I guess I am not really late...lol. At least there is no one to tattle on me that I am.  So here is my Five for Friday on Sunday Funday.

Did you like that title...are you wondering what in the world Gingerbread Elves are...I must confess we did not make gingerbread elves or anything of the sort. I was at a total loss for a catchy title, it just isn't my forte.  So, I guess I lured you here under false pretenses.  We learned all about Gingerbread and had fun with our Elf but that is as far as it goes. Without further adieu on to the happenings of our week.

This was our focus wall for the week. We packed a lot of learning in while making it fun.

It was a crazy busy week here not to mention the weather threw a wrench into some of our plans.  We don't have snow...like ever...but we have fog so bad you can't see one line on the road, no joke. Monday we ended up canceling buses and most of my kids ride the bus and have no other transportation, so I only had 9 kiddos for the day.  I didn't want to start all our new topics with only half my class so we did fun review activities for the day.  

Then we had another fog delay Tuesday, buses ran but 2 hours late so we were crunched for time. Then Thursday night and all day Friday we had crazy rain. Friday morning our bus actually got stuck in the mud, thankfully it had no kiddos aboard yet, so it was another late start day. We did our best to get everything done that I had planned. 

Here are our circle maps for the week.  The kiddos came up with so many great ch- words that it got a little squished and I ran into our letters...lol...the fun of creating these anchor charts with the kiddos.

  

We continued our study of all things Gingerbread this week.  This was our Poem of the week. Poetry is one of the kiddos favorites things we do each week.  This is from a fantastic unit by Deedee Wills that you can find here.

These are the Gingerbread stories that we read this week.

I think the kiddos will tell you that the Senorita Gordita was their favorite.  Probably due to fact that they were all cracking up at me trying to use my best Spanish accent while reading this story and all the characters voices I made up.  It was great fun. If you don't have this story you need to get it... now.

After we read each story we came up with the setting, the characters, the problem and the solution and put them on post it notes.  I am the queen of post its...lol.  Then we put them on this anchor chart. If you follow me on instagram you saw a sneak peak of this in progress earlier this week.  

Then we would choose two stories at a time from the chart and do a big Venn Diagram using the post its. The students were great at deciding what was the same and different with each story. They were surprised to see how many of the characters and the problems were the same in the stories.  Sorry to say I didn't get any pics of our diagrams it was just so busy and we were having such a great time I totally forgot.

Our Elf Chippy was up to plenty of mischief this week.  He still was hanging out at places "on high", however that didn't dimenish the fun we had.  The kiddos were so excited each day to come in and search for him.  Then I would always be surprised when they told me, "look there he is!" 

They loved that he was sitting "crisscross applesauce" on our phone...lol. Then Friday morning we came into the room to find this...

Chippy had made a mess in our room and then he left a note explaining what had happened.

The funniest part was I only knew that Chippy and his friends had knocked over our chairs.  However, the kiddos informed me that he also had books out of place in the library and that a few of the materials in our writing center were out of order...lol.  I always try to put things back at the end of each day, but evidently I missed a few things, since I left in a hurry to get to an appointment the day before. Things all work out for a reason...haha!

Each day we write in our elf journal as well. Last week when Chippy arrived we completed the name page and his photo page but I had forgotten to take pics.  

Then each day the kiddos write about where Chippy was hiding.  If you like the letters and journal you can find them here by Kristal from Kreative in Kinder. It has been great to see what the kiddos write each day.  They are doing a fantastic job of sounding out all their words.  I couldn't be prouder.

We started on our first RAK (random acts of kindness) this week and the suggestion was from our elf Chippy.  One morning we found this note...

So we made cards for our maintenance, custodial and cafeteria staff. The kiddos really enjoyed making these cards and I think they will really put a smile on the faces of those who work so hard at our school.  If you like these card patterns they are a freebie you can find here from Starsha Malek.

They did a great job with their illustrations of Mr. M. taking out the trash and raking the leaves.

We finished off our week making these cute paper Gingerbread friends. Some made men and some made girls and a great time was had by all. I love how even though we had the same supplies each one is unique like each child who made it.

This next week we will be making Gingerbread houses and cookies. Should be lots of fun. How was your week?  I love to read your comments so leave me some love.  Have a great week!