I will upload photos on Thursday, but didn't want to delay the post any longer! Technical difficulty! So to kick off the week after Thanksgiving, we had to do some fun Santa stories! We read the silly Santa's Stuck story. We summarized, clarified, asked questions, and predicted while reading. We did a lot of predicting about how the characters would help Santa and the solution surprised them all. The kids made their own Santa stuck in a chimney (above) and wrote an explanatory piece about what they would do if they found Santa stuck in their chimney. We are so impressed with how well they do writing an introductory sentence, details, and a closing sentence. I forgot to snap some pictures with my phone of their writing so I will add those next week! They had some great ideas and I'm sure Santa would appreciate their help if he ever found himself in that situation! We also read How Santa Got His Job. This book is great and there are so many learning opportunities within the story. We used details from the story and the illustrations to describe Santa. We made a character web with all of the descriptions. The students worked in cooperative learning groups to sequence the 12 events in the story. They then had to meet with another group to compare their work and come to a consensus on the correct sequence. It was a challenge, but they all ended up with the correct order by the end. We also learned about cause and effect. This is a tricky skill for first graders, but using the events in this story made it fun. Students worked together to identify the cause and effect for a given situation from the story. They had to illustrate both the cause and the effect and share their thinking with the rest of the class. There was a big improvement in their understanding of cause and effect within the 30 minute lesson! Since the story was all about Santa finding a job that met his personality and strengths, the students had the opportunity to apply for their first dream job: Santa's Elf! They had to fill out an application and write a paragraph stating their opinion with reasons why they would be a good elf. I couldn't believe how focused they were. I think they took the application very seriously and are hoping Santa picks them one day to be one of his elves!
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