Dear Santa

I wanted to do a twist on our Dear Santa letters this year. This bunch that I have is very heart-full. :) They think about others often and will interrupt a lesson to say "why do people use plastic bottles if it hurts the environment?" or last year we decided to make valentines for a nursing home instead of exchanging with each other.

In their letter to Santa, I asked them to ask for something for someone else, not for themselves. I was very pleased with what they came up with and the variety of answers. We made it into a class book so could share it with parents too.

                                                       I love the little added note at the bottom! :)

 

Papa, Please Get The.....For Me

Continuing our Eric Carle study with:

So as a response project, I asked them to make themselves climbing a ladder reaching for something unreachable and they wrote "Papa, bring me the.....". I don't know why the pics of their writing didn't come out as well, but I wanted to share them anyway.

Please bring me the stars so I could sleep with it and the star won't be alone.

crayon

a cloud

A bird (I love that he did his blue the opposite way!)

so I can live in a nest and tweet tweet in the night sky (a born poet or what?! :)

                                                                  the sun

a flower

a cloud

a cloud because it can hold my little brother and sister so I don't have to hold them.

                                                                    the world

the sky

a diamond

the core (of the earth) so I can play ball with it.

clouds

Eric Carle Characters

One of the challenges with looping is coming up with all new units to do with your kiddos! Especially around the holidays, I think we all have certain books we like to read or crafts we like to make---we did all those already last year! So over the break I really tried to come up with some ideas for new units that would keep their attention in these last few weeks before the holiday.

I went to the library and found some Eric Carle books that I actually feel badly I didn't know existed before. We have read a lot of the insect-related stories, but I had no idea he had this batch of books that can be used as a real spark for creativity. One of them is Draw Me a Star:  (and I know there is some controversy regarding one of the ilustrations-my library copy had the man and the woman clothed as much as they would be on the beach, so you may want to check first if you use it. If it had the original illustration I'd probably still use the book, just maybe skip that page):

I am always open to questions, but I asked my kids to hold their questions for the end as I read this story. One of my girls commented that the story was very "peaceful". I think it's a beautiful story and especially if you read the inspiration for it on the last page. I love finding out how authors come up with their ideas.

I asked my kids to write from the perspective of an Eric Carle character. What is it like to be in one of his books compared to say Winnie-the-Pooh or a Dr. Seuss book? What is good about it/hard/what would you wish for. I LOVED some of the ideas they came up with and couldn't wait to share them with you guys.

I had to cut off his illustration to crop out his name-but he was in the clouds!

I think that's my favorite one. They all wanted to re-read the story themselves, so that book did work hard in our classroom!