Five for Friday: Christmas in Europe

Again, something I haven't done in forever, and almost didn't make it today!

This 5 for Friday is brought to you by my students!

This is their 5 for Friday about our recent Market Day - Christmas is Europe.

They are pretty excited, Doodle Bugs Teaching!

France

The students loved being the tour guides for France.  They welcomed all the other third grade classes and taught them about France.  I just took pictures! I loved seeing them stepping up and being wonderful teachers for their friends.  They each took a 20 minute session to be tour guides.

They loved the berets I found for them.  They thought that was amazing!

See this post for more of how we taught our friends.

Food

The food from all the different countries was a huge hit!

In France, we had Ratatouille, bread, cheeses and sparkling grape juice.

In Russia, we enjoyed pirozhki, beet chips, Russian tea cakes and Russian tea.

In Germany, chocolate was devoured.

In England, English tea and cupcakes were a hit.

In Spain, Spanish meatballs and a Spanish punch was served.

In Italy, salomi, panettone bread and cheese were inhaled.

                  

                  

FUN

We just had the best time going from country to country. We also enjoyed our "layovers" in the different rooms.  Our county librarian brought Christmas books that showed the different countries and cultures in Europe. The kids enjoyed her telling the stories.

Another layover found us in a room where we put together puzzles of the world.

We were joined by our superintendent of schools!

Some chose to spend the layover time coloring.

Learning about Europe

Each country was so unique.

We loved how Italy was set up like someone's house for us to visit.

In Russia, it was so cold because in Russia it is cold.  We also loved the art in Russia.

In Germany, we ate great chocolate.

In Spain, we learned some of the language from a university professor!

In England, we got crackers we could pop open and find candy! 

                 

                 

Friends

We had such a great time just being with our friends.

We taught them and they taught us.

It was a great way to spend time with our best friends.

                       

                       

What a great trip we had!

Check out #ECESEuropeanTour on Instagram and Twitter to see more.

Book Challenge #8 & #9

Dear Students,

      I am so excited about what we are going to be doing after Thanksgiving in order to get ready for Christmas! To help me prepare, I read these two books this past week.  I know it was not a challenge any of you gave me, but I needed to read them.  The first one I read and LOVED it.  It does help that it is about one of my most favorite cities in the world - London, England.  It is a Magic Tree House Fact Tracker called Rags and Riches.  It is informational text all about life in Victorian England.  I loved reading about how children lived back in these days even though it is so sad how most children had to live.  I am not going to tell you a whole lot because I want it all to be new when we look at parts of this in a few weeks.  It really is a good read and, because your teacher is a nerd, I will probably be reading it again!

      The other book I finished is the companion to Rags and Riches.  It is called A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time.  Again, I don't want to tell you much about it because we may be using it for part of our Christmas study.  However, I will tell you that Jack and Annie go back to London, England, to help one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens.   He is the man who wrote A Christmas Carol. Jack and Annie help Mr. Dickens and realize they also helped the world for years to come.  I can't wait for us to get into this book!

      I have told you I love Christmas! This is getting to Mrs. Becky's favorite part of the year and I am so excited these two books are going to be part of our celebration.

Your Christmas loving teacher,

Mrs. Becky

Our Reading Christmas Tree

To say that our principal loves reading and wants all of our children to love reading is a MAJOR understatement!!!  She is doing wonderful things to encourage everyone in the school to read and to love reading.  For our Christmas PTO meeting, she decorated this Christmas tree with all of our favorite book characters.  I thought it was just precious!!!

Isn't she great!!!  I have a lot of trees in my house at Christmas and one day I want to have a tree like this - doubt it will happen, but, hey!  Here's hoping!!!