3 weeks until Christmas Break!!

The realization came to me today when I was looking at my plan book...

Next week I have this...

Then I need to fit in this....

Oh, remember last year when we had fun doing that??.....

Oh, yeah and remember how there are only 3 school weeks until break?!? It seems like once a number like that is put on it, there really isn't time to do anything!!

We are going to fit in a little something though... I mean we do have:

•  2 whole math standards to master
• to conquer the unknown out in space
• to learn about different cultures (which we will stragically place this Social Studies right into the Reading block!)
• Fun Christmas Activities!!!

Yes, in the words of Tim Gunn, we will "make it work"!

So, to get us off on the right track this week, we are starting off with a project that has partially been completed at home, and will be finished at school over the next 2 weeks. I try my hardest to make learning in our classroom about discovery, but sometimes we have to front load the little brains in our classroom to provide that background knowledge... which is crutial to understanding holidays and traditions from different cultures.

**You can get more information about the Cultural Traditions project by checking out my good friend's TPT store: Vandy Penguins. I was lucky enough to have her on my team!!

Here is our timeline:

 So, here is the *best* part of this project. We recently got some new, very large windows installed in our hallway! They are beautiful but right now when we look at them we think it looks like something is missing!

So, we have asked the artifacts that are brought in to represent the holiday selected be about 2 inches or smaller to fit in a clear ornament. Then, we will hang all the artifacts in the ornaments in front of the huge window.
*We were able to get an amazing deal on the ornaments from Oriental Trading! 

I am super excited to see how it turns out! So, technically, Phase 1 should be completed as of Monday, when the kids are suppose to return the initial graphic organizers.... I sure hope they do!!


Anyway, during reading we will soon begin our research on pebblego.com to learn about these holidays, but we will also do some "close" reading on different holidays too. I spent a lot of my day today looking for the perfect close reading passage that was (free).... but there wasn't much out there that was helping me out! I think I put about 10 in my cart, before I thought... I should have just been typing something up this whole time!

So, I did type something up. After reading this awesome guided reading book called "Celebrate Around the World" by Margaret C. Hall. I made a whole packet to keep us busy in reading for part of the week as we slowly begin our research.

There are about 4 pages with short passages with questions. Then at the end I put a Venn Diagram and a little Vocabulary chart to tie it all together. Please go download this freebie by clicking here or any of the photos above.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and didn't spend too much money because you know Cyber Monday is coming up!! Sale on TPT!!!

Courtesy of the 3AM Teacher :) Click above to make it to my shop for your spending pleasure!!

rule breaker

I don't know about you but I have trouble following the reading series straight through. I mean sometimes there are stories in Journeys that I could use at different times because they go well with science and/or social studies. Of course I want to try and plan cross-curricularly as much as possible, so I am kind of skipping around in Journeys.

Not drastically... just skipping a story here or there. I can always go back to those stories, and we will for sure cover the skills, but we just swap the stories up. No harm done!

So, this week (after a little shifting) we are reading a realistic fiction and a biography. We started working on biographies the past week and a half with Helen Keller. It seems like perfect timing with MLK now, next we will jump right into Black History Month early.

The story we are reading this week is Luke Goes to Bat with a companion story about Jackie Robinson. I am trying include a close reading component at least once a week to practice finding information in the text. So, I used the companion story (Jackie Robinson) and made up a little directed close read for it. Copy it front and back and use it small group, whole group, or let students do it by themselves.

Click the picture above to download the freebie. 

We are learning about MLK this week, and we started our mini-unit with a little activity I like to call:

Drink and Draw

You may have been to something called Sips n' Strokes- which is basically like a painting class with wine (can't go wrong there!). Well, I changed the name and threw in a juice box and now we have Drink and Draw. We use a directed drawing (like this one) and have a good ol' time.

It is really fun!

Off to bed... ready for the 4 day week! :)