Grinch Day

We had a terrific Grinch day!  It was a busy, joyful day!  We started the day, of course, by reading the great book How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  I have the book as an app on my phone.  The book is on sale for $1.99 on the app store.  I love the OM Book apps because the students can read along with the book.  Click here to link to the book in the app store.

After reading the book, each grade level had a different writing assignment.  The second graders studied the similes and metaphors in "The Grinch Song."  We discussed the similes in the Grinch and then worked on writing our own similes.  First, we brainstormed lists of adjectives that describe the Grinch.  The children came up with some great words: furry, rotten, nasty, clever, lonely.  We continued with adjectives by listing words that described the Grinch's heart at the beginning of the story (tiny, empty, cold) and the end of the story (large, caring, happy).  Last the students wrote their own series of similes and/or metaphors to describe the character of the Grinch.

 
 


I loved what the students came up with.  Here are a couple examples from the pieces.

The Grinch was as horrible as rotten cheese.

The Grinch was as sly as a fox.

His heart was as empty as the pool in the winter.

His heart was as tiny as a crumb.

At the the end, the Grinch's heart was full of kindness like Santa.

For first grade writing, we talked about how the Grinch didn't have joy.  Together we brainstormed a list of things that bring us joy.  Then, the students made their own lists.   On the J we wrote nouns that bring us joy and the Y was for a list of verbs that bring us joy.  They worked so hard.

The students used their joy list to write a sentence about how we would make the Grinch grin.  Then we attached the sentences to a Grinch craft.  They had wonderful ideas to bring joy to the Grinch.

Here are some of the excellent examples.  

I would make the Grinch grin by telling him jokes. 

  I would make the Grinch grin by showing him love.

I would make the Grinch grin by taking him to class.

I would make the Grinch grin by being his friend.

 

We made some magic Grinch dust to keep the Grinches away this Christmas.  To make Grinch dust you need a small bag of something sweet.  Then you add two drops of love and two drops of joy.  You must hug the love and joy in the bag until it turns green.  I have to ask you to do the last step at home.  Sprinkle the Grinch dust on your lawn Christmas Eve to keep the Grinch away and keep all your Christmas joy.

 

 

After lunch, we had an enormous QR hunt with the Miss Frey's class.  The Grinch tried to steal our Christmas by scrambling all our Christmas words and sight words.  We had to hunt all around the classroom to unscramble all the words. Such fun!

 

Math was Grinchy too!  We balanced equations but instead of writing the answers, we shaped the numbers with cold, green spaghetti!   Ewwww!

It was such a wonderful day.  The whole first and second grade wing enjoyed Grinchy activities!  I just love our school!  We are still working on one more Grinch day art piece.  Hopefully, I will get our final Grinch project posted on Monday.