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Key Takeaways

  • Kids learn about different jobs in a bakery, plus the concepts of goods and services.
  • They get a fun break with a Gingerbread Dance Party.
  • Kids practice using descriptive words to track down a missing gingerbread person!

What is it about gingerbread that gets us in the mood for the holidays? The cute little shape? The smell? The fun of decorating? For me...all of it! I am SO excited that Scholastic News for grade 1 included Gingerbread Jobs for December! There is so much great content in this issue, and it’s perfectly timed for December!

We started our lesson by watching the video “That's My Job!” In a kid-friendly way, the video explained that jobs are everywhere around us—from police officers to ice-cream tasters. It goes on to explain why it's necessary for people to have jobs and the difference between goods and services. Of course, my students had to share what they want to be when they grow up—from a soccer player to a mom to a teacher!

Next, we read Scholastic News online together on our interactive whiteboard. Students loved volunteering to read “a colored box” (as we call them!).

Another bonus of using the online digital issue is that the important bolded vocabulary words in the student issue are highlighted on the digital version. I can just tap on the word and the definition pops up.

After reading through the jobs in the bakery, we took a quick Dance Break. The kids could not get enough of the Gingerbread Dance Party video and begged me to play it a second time!

We finished up our issue by completing the riddles on the back of the magazine and doing another Gingerbread Dance Party!

 

To make sure my students understood the content that we covered, I printed out a copy of the printable "Reading Checkpoint: Gingerbread Jobs". Because we're still in the early days of reading, I read the questions to the students, but they filled in the answers on their own.

This printable covered the basics, but I wanted to challenge my learners to see if they really understood what the issue was about! I printed a copy of the "Main Idea and Details" printable and paired up students to get started. We’ve been talking a lot about referring back to the texts we read to find information. This activity was the perfect way to put that idea into practice.

 

The real excitement with the gingerbread came the following day when we used "Whose Gingerbread Person Is This?" printable. The students first used descriptive color words to describe their "LOST Gingerbread Person!" I loved overhearing the rainbow of colors they wanted to use to decorate their person.

 

The students then used the LOST Gingerbread Person! printable as a guide for coloring the gingerbread person. Tip: Print the gingerbread person onto white cardstock or white construction paper, if you can. It’ll be more durable when you hang them up!

 

After all the gingerbreads were cut out and hung up around the room, I randomly passed out the completed "Whose Gingerbread Person Is This?" printable. Students quietly walked around the room reading the clues and trying to match them up. Once they found the owner of the gingerbread, they swapped with a classmate to find another. To make it festive (and discourage talking!), I put on some holiday music as they walked around.

This activity was a blast for the students! They thought they were just on a treasure hunt, but I was able to sneak in some reading and a visual-discrimination activity! Once we ran out of time, the students begged me to do this activity again (which we did a couple more times in the following days!)

Later in the week, I pulled out the Color by Sight Word printable. This was a perfect activity for working on the all-important sight words! Plus, every first grader loves an excuse to pull out their color crayons!

As always, Scholastic News knows how to make learning engaging and fun!

 

Molly Lynch is a first-grade teacher in the San Francisco Bay area. She also writes the blog LuckyToBeInFirst.com.

 

This issue of Scholastic News for grade 1 turned everyone's favorite holiday treat into a bunch of fun learning activities.

If you’re looking for a way to bring fun, hands-on lessons like these into your classroom, try Scholastic News for yourself. Sign up for a FREE 30-day trial and discover how Scholastic News can help you engage students in seasonal lessons all year long.

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