Christmas: Shoe Shopping and a Setting Scavenger Hunt

We went "shoe shopping" this week, and had a blast learning all about digraph /sh/ with shoes! At word work, the kids had to sort shoes:

Another popular activity was "Shoelace Spelling"--spelling /sh/ words with shoelaces (or, in our case, yarn--because I didn't have shoelaces.)

They had to read words with /sh/ to earn "shoe dollars" to spend at the class Shoe Shop. The picture below shows one cute and "fashiony" example of a purple high-heel purchase {read the describing words--I LOVE it!} On another note, I did not help her with spelling the word fashion(y)--I am actually very impressed.

I also added a class journal to our writing area that will remain there the rest of the school year. My little friends get pretty excited about new shoes, so they now have a journal to draw and write about their new shoes:

We were also learning to identify the setting in stories this week. At buddy reading, the kids went on a "Setting Scavenger Hunt" through our class library, looking for books that took place in the settings listed on cards.

This guy did a great job with his Setting Scavenger Hunt:

We also spent a lot of time brainstorming books with famous settings. They came up with really great examples: Zuckerman's Farm (Charlotte's Web), The Town of ChewandSwallow (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), the Berenstain Bear's tree house (The Berenstain Bear's books), the Chocolate Factory (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Hogwart's (Harry Potter series), Skippyjonjones' closet (Skippyjonjones books), The Mountain View Inn (The Mouse and the Motorcycle), the North Pole/Polar Express (The Polar Express).

After brainstorming the famous book settings, the kids designed travel brochures for a famous book setting. Although this was challenging, I was so pleased with their creativity and critical thinking. They really worked hard on these!