Gingerbread- second grade

My December activity for second grade had to be short and sweet.  Since we lost two weeks with Hurricane Sandy, we had fallen behind on projects and were running out of time before break.

I loved the idea of adding culture to my activites in the third grade so I tried to do it with second graders too.  We started by reading "The Gingerbread Man" by Jim Aylesworth. The students love to read along and I love when they do.
Then the students created Gingerbread Glyphs on the computer.

The next week we read "The Matzo Ball Boy" by Lisa Shulman and compared the two books.  We also kept a list of all the Yiddush words and their definitions on the SMART Board.  After the story students began using a program called The Graph Club. (I really wanted to introduce Excel but time constraints prevented it.)  We began graphing the students answers to the glyph about the activities they like to do.

In the third week we read "The Runaway Rice Cake" by Ying Chang and compared the cultures.  The story is a bit different from the gingerbread man but it was great for the students to recognize that.  This story is very cultural. Students completed their graphs.

Common Core
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.4 Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.
 

Holidays Around the World- Third Grade

Every December I try and do a month long holiday related project with each grade.  This year the third graders were traveling around the world.  Each pair of students received a plan ticket and got to researching.

(plan tickets Word doc)

Using the websites:

• Santas Net
• Why Christmas?
• She Knows (For Hanukkah)

students took notes about what holiday is celebrated in the country assigned to them, how they celebrate that holiday, and details about the celebration. Groups will take their notes, type up a paragraph, and draw an image to display on their computer screen.

Once complete students will travel around the room with the passport below.  Each student will visit each country, read the paragraph, view the picture, and write a note about what they found to be the most interesting onto the passport.

 We will vote for the discuss the most interesting celebrations.

Common Core
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.7 Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic.