December is all about print awareness. We are learning about the purpose print serves and practicing our hand at "reading" and "writing" our own print!
Last week we read The Jolly Christmas Postman by Allan and Janet Ahlberg. I let the kids play with all the fun pieces in the pockets within the book. We played a game of Bingo (our version was called "MAIL") that had the finding each word on their game cards (with the assistance of pictures). After the game we "wrote" our own letter to be mailed or delivered ourselves. The kids adored getting to mess around with my notepads and fancy pens and envelopes.
This week we read The Three Bears' Christmas by Kathy Duval. The kids got a kick out of this fun twist on the classic fairy tale. After I read it to them, then they got their own rebus reader version to read with me. They all did fantastic with it! Better than I imagined. What really impressed me was how they all wanted to read it with me. I worried that it might be an activity that wouldn't really hold their interest, but they loved it and really took ownership of it. I sent them home with the assignment of reading it to someone at their house. They all seemed to take that very seriously, and so I can't wait to hear how their reading went when I see them again next week.
I had a blast making this fun little faux fireplace to take to class with me this month. The idea behind it was that I wanted to use this as a spring board for talking up the idea of curling up with a good book, in a cozy place, during the winter months. I brought in a bunch of Christmas books and laid them around the fireplace, and as they finished their work and headed over to have a look, I chatted with them about where they like to read at home. It kind of took a funny turn when I heard about some of the places their mommies and daddies like to read too (the bathroom). I love that my students have great reading role models at home! I will bring my fireplace again next week and see if I can entice a few more students to curl up with a book in front of it!
