Happy New Year! (Hot Chocolate & Symmetry)

Happy New Year!!!

...she says on the18th, about half way through January...

So yes I'm a little late, but you know what they say: better late than never! 

Our first week back was a jumble of melancholy, excitement, reviewing rules & procedures, and...HOT CHOCOLATE! 

Yes, it was once again our hot chocolate week. Each morning we read Snowman Soup:

This week, we also learned about ABC order. Pocket Chart centre and Word Work 1 had kiddies practicing their knowledge of ABC order:

(from my Hot Chocolate mini-unit)

(from Cara's Back to School pack)

At Word Work 2, the kids took all of the letters from "hot chocolate" and mixed them up to see how many words they could make:

(also from my Hot Chocolate mini-unit)

Of course, at the end of the week we enjoyed describing and drinking some delicious hot chocolate with marshmallows. For a few more hot chocolatey activities you can check out the pack in more detail by clicking the pic below:

*2016: THIS PRODUCT HAS SINCE BEEN UPDATED*

(pictures in this post do not reflect the updates)

Lastly, we have been cruising through our 2D Geometry math unit, and we had some fun creating our own symmetrical paintings:

(I was just quickly and "abstractly" throwing paint on the paper when creating my example with the kids, and they ended up totally convinced that I made an outstanding African statue! ...I totally see it, though. What a bunch of smarties!)

To make our symmetrical paintings, all we did was fold a big piece of paper in half to create a crease (we also talked lots about the concept of half throughout this unit), loaded lots of paint on to one half, and then folded and pressed both sides together to transfer the paint to the opposite side. *I say you have to load on lots of paint on since tempra paint dries quite quickly, and otherwise the paint will not transfer as effectively*

All of their symmetrical designs turned out so neat and are now hanging brightly on our hallway walls!

And that's all for now, folks! Stay tuned for our week of consonant blends, 5 Senses Frankie, and an engaging "northern style" descriptive writing activity.