It was a magical week in room 124! We continued learning about fairy tales AND had a visit from a leprechaun! We started off the week with our new fairy tale, The 3 Billy Goats Gruff. We watched and read two classic versions, and then read a mixed up version. We compared and contrasted the differences and practiced sequencing the events of the story. On Wednesday, I challenged the students to design and build a bridge for the 3 Billy Goats to cross using popsicle sticks, toothpicks, and gumdrops. It was our hardest STEM challenge to date, but the students did great! They worked together, problem solved, and came up with many ways to get across the river.
The rest of our week centered around our leprechaun, Lucky! He came Monday morning with a note and left his hat in the ceiling. We wrote him letters and each day he caused some sort of mischief in the classroom such as leaving shamrocks and a pot of gold. On Thursday, we decided we needed to use the gold coins he left to lure him into our leprechaun traps. We first built leprechaun traps out of blocks with our third grade buddies. It was so fun to have them in our room! Then, we plan and built traps out of recycled materials to leave out for the leprechaun.
We were SHOCKED Friday morning when we realized the leprechaun had left footprints on all of our traps! he also made a big mess; leaving paint and green EVERYWHERE. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with some fun centers. The students made rainbow twirls out of plates, graphed and ate Lucky Charms, cut and glued a paper rainbow, and made shamrocks out of beads and pipe cleaners. Thank you Arin, Deanna, and Kristen for helping out!
Next week, we move on to our next fairy tale...