A December Quilt

If you've read some of my other quilt posts you'll know that I really wanted to figure out some sort of December quilt page that wasn't blatantly "Christmas-y". I have a lot of kids that celebrate Hannukah, and I wanted something that celebrated the season without excluding anyone. So here's what I ended up with! I LOVE it! So basically a four square design: a picture, name page with patterns  (I blurred the names on the green page with the white shape pattern), a decorated gingerbread man (to commemorate our gingerbread study), and handprint snowmen. To make the snowmen just paint the kids four fingers and the top half of the palm. Paint a white patch over it for the ground. After it dries have the kiddos decorate their snowmen using markers.

If you're interested in seeing more monthly quilt ideas that can later be put together for a memory book check out my other quilt post: Quilts

Happy "Quilting!"
Jessie

A Gingerbread Town: A Study of Economics

The minute I saw the idea for making a gingerbread town I just knew my class had to do it. In previous years I've made a town with my class as an extension to our mini-economic unit. It always turned out cute but I just knew with the added gingerbread theme it would just be beyond. I am so thrilled with way it turned out, and the kids are so proud! As an added bonus I finally found a way to cover our economic standards in a way the kiddos really connected to. So here's what I did:

Day 1: Needs and Wants- We watched the Brainpop Jr. on Needs and Wants and then we made a list of needs and wants.

Day 2: Good and Services- Adding on to day one's lesson we watched the Brainpop Jr. on Goods and Services. We then did the sorting activity on EconEdLink (we had a little trouble using this with our SMART board, not sure why). As an assessment the kids did this and this worksheet I found on education.com.

Day 3: Goods and Services in a Town- After reviewing our list of needs and wants we generated a list on the SMART board (I just typed into a SMART notebook as the kids gave ideas). We discussed how each idea satisfied the needs and wants on our previous list.

Day 4: Sorting Goods and Services- We used our ideas from Day 4 and sorting them into two groups goods and services. The kids really understood the concept at this point, and they did awesome with this.

Day 5: Creating a Town and Workers- This was the best! Each child choose a building to make for our town. In addition they created a "gingerbread worker" that would work at their selected business (i.e. a doctor for the hospital, a fireman for the fire station). They also created a house just for fun. =) Most of the kids really got into this and it turned out so great. Check out the pics below to see our creation!

I hope this gives you some ideas for creating a gingerbread town with your own little sweeties! I really can't say enough how much the kiddos loved this unit.

Happy Teaching!
Jessie