The holiday reading and writing possibilities are endless! This holiday we read Chris Van Allsburg's Caldecott, award winning children's book, The Polar Express. Wearing pajamas just like the kids in the story, we made text-self connections, while exploring the beautiful simile imagery throughout this amazing book. My kids were able to actually taste the smilies as found in the story, by biting into “chocolates with nougat centers as white as snow” and drinking "hot cocoa as rich and thick as melted chocolate bars!" We then wrote down our favorite Polar Express smilies on our speech bubbles for our Polar Express board, and watched the movie together. We had a great time creating family memories while responding to classic kids literature .

After our kinder and 1st grade students crafted their Christmas lists to Santa Claus, they worked on their fine motor skills by cutting and wrapping pieces of cereal boxes to make them look like real gifts! This week I get to find out if they got all that they asked for! (Including a new puppy)

December writing in The Little Red Schoolhouse! Our students were able to participate in a story retell of the gingerbread man. They brainstormed their own gingerbread words, rolled out letters with homemade gingerbread dough, and tasted gingerbread cookies. We then baked up some acrostic gingerbread poems of our own, with gold foil baking sheets and all!

Brainstorming gingerbread words for our writing!

Homemade fully edible gingerbread house, featuring rosemary wreaths and trees.

Our poems hanging on our poet – tree!

Holiday Writing