Fairy Tales: Jack and the Beanstalk

We continued our unit on fairy tales today by reading Jack and the Beanstalk. After reading, we looked at our chart to see if this story would qualify as a fairy tale. We had a great discussion of good vs bad characters once again. Some of my friends felt that Jack was a good character because he was trying to help his mom and make her happy. Others felt that he was a bad character because he was stealing things that didn't belong to him. In the end the class decided he was in fact a "bad guy"and that only the mom and the man selling beans were the "good guys". The reasoning was that those two characters did not trick anyone, nor were they mean or doing bad things. Everyone agreed that Jack was naughty, but not necessarily all bad, so they asked me to write that he was "kind of a bad guy".

To retell this story we focusing on the different story elements. Each student created a small beanstalk and wrote about the different elements on each of the leaves (It's hard to see since it's done in pencil, sorry!):

For writing today, we started by reading a mixed up version of this fairy tale. We read a Texas style fairy tale that I just love: Wynetta and the Cornsalk.  Everyone LOVED the "country voices" that were used in the story! We briefly looked over our chart and determined that this was also in fact a fairy tale, even though it was a bit mixed up. We made a connection to this story in the form of a class book. Each student drew themselves climbing the beanstalk and wrote about what they would be willing to climb the beanstalk to get.

Fairy Tales: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Today we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. After reading we took a look at our fairy tail elements chart to see if this book fit our definition of a fairy tale. We had a great discussion about good vs bad characters in this story. Some of our friends thought that Goldilocks should be the good character since she was the main character, but many of them argued that she was actually very naughty, and therefore the bad character. After much debate, the class decided that Goldilocks was indeed the "bad guy" of the story, and the 3 bears were the "good guys".

Next, everyone made a little bear book to retell the story using the words first, next, then, and last. We can never get enough practice with this skill!

Fairy Tales: The Three Little Pigs

Today we continued our unit on fairy tales by reading The Three Little Pigs. Everyone loved this story because they could use the pig and wolf voices and help read aloud! After reading the book we looked at our chart to see if the story would qualify as a fairy tale based off of the characteristics:

Then we practiced retelling the story using beginning, middle, and end with this cute chain of pink pigs:

For writing today, we read a mixed up version of this fairy tale. We read The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark. After reading, we talked about how an author goes about making a mixed up fairy tale. Each student was then asked to brainstorm ideas for their very own mixed up version of this fairy tale. Goodness do we have some creative friends in this class!

Over the next week we are going to work on turning our ideas into our very own published versions of this fairy tale!

Fairy Tales: Little Red Riding Hood

This week we are learning about Fairy Tales! We started off the unit by discussing what makes a fairy tale special and what elements to look for in a story to determine if it is a fairy tale or not.

(sorry about the glare, I had this chart laminated)

Next, we read our first fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood! After reading we filled out this chart to see which of the fairy tale elements were in the story. We determined that Little Red Riding Hood is in fact a fairy tale because it contains each of the 7 elements.

After that each student was able to create their own finger puppet play to practice retelling the story to their friends and family. We used paper bags to create the scenery: one side for the forest, the other side for the grandmother's bedroom.

Finally, everyone created these cute little finger puppets. Some of my friends were disappointed that there was not a finger puppet for the hunter in the story, so using scrap paper they created their own!

These should have come home yesterday in each student's folder. Ask your child to retell and act out the story for you tonight!

Saint Patrick's Day

On Friday, we talked a little bit about Saint Patrick's Day in class since we will still be on spring break when the holiday rolls around. We started out by watching a short video from United Streaming on the history of the holiday. Then, we pulled up pebblego.com to do some research. We reviewed some of the facts we learned, then each student put together this cute little leprechaun craft and wrote three facts they learned about the holiday.

For writing, we talked about one of the symbols of the holiday: the shamrock (also known as a clover). We talked about how most of them have 3 leaves, but when you find one with four leaves it is lucky! We created these cute 4 leaf clovers and wrote about something that makes each one of us lucky.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe spring break! Enjoy the time at home and I'll see everyone in a week! :)

Open House - Texas!

A BIG thank you to everyone who made it out for open house on Thursday! Your kids worked incredibly hard to get everything ready for you, so I was happy to see so many of you take the time out of your day to let them show off their great work!

In case you were not able to make it, here's a peek at what you missed:

Rodeo Time!

It's rodeo time in Houston! I just LOVE the rodeo; it is one of my favorite times of  year. We have been hard at work learning about Texas and the rodeo this past week, and will continue the unit throughout this coming week. Everyone has been hard at work creating projects to display at open house on Thursday. Because I don't want to spoil the surprise, I'm not going to be posting any details about our work. If you want to see what we have been working on, you'll have to stop by open house on Thursday between 6:15 and 7:30. I hope to see everyone there!