Chefs for a Day

The students in Mrs. Hogan's class became chefs for a day.  Do you want to know what we baked?  Synonym Rolls!!!!!!  I got this super cute idea from Cara Caroll over at The First Grade Parade.  She has the cutest ideas and I just love integrating these awesome learning activities into my classroom.  This kids love em' too!  To start off our lesson on synonyms I wanted to get an idea of the background knowledge the students had.  I set up chart paper that was divided into four squares.  Each square had a word in it.  The students had to think of another word that had the same meaning as the word in the box.  They recorded their thinking on post-its and placed it on the chart.  We then went over each chart and words and discussed our thinking.  Next, I went to the library to get some books about synonyms.  Our librarian Mrs. Williams is awesome about getting us material that we need.  She had two great books.  The first book I read was "Grasp and Know Pitch and Throw:  What is a Synonym?"  After reading the book, I recorded the synonyms the students heard throughout the story on our synonym anchor chart.  The following day I read another book from the same series called "  Stroll and Walk Babble and Talk More about Synonyms?"  Once again I recorded the synonyms the students heard throughout the reading of the story.  On this day the students also had a recording sheet.  While I was recording our words on our anchor chart the students were recording their words on their synonym recording sheet.  Afterwards, I told our students they were going to become chefs.  They were going to "bake" synonym rolls.  They were to choose a word and then write the synonyms for the word in their cinnamon rolls.  The students wore these cute little chef hats while they were "baking."  It was so much fun!!!! We ended this four day week with some fun Easter activities.  We graphed jellybeans in math and had a fun educational egg hunt.  I'll try to get some pictures of those activities posted soon.  But for now, I have some pictures of our day "baking."