Our Cranberry Tasting

It feels wonderful to be back on my blog. It's been a long time! I really don't have a good excuse and I have missed it very much. This school year is wonderful! My class is so sweet and I count my blessings every day. Last year was so hard, but I'm fully recovered from what I termed Post Tramatic Class Disorder. And it feels good.

This post will be fairly short, I just to share this cranberry idea with those of you that may still have a few days left to teach before Thanksgiving. We're off all next week and it will nice to recharge my batteries. The kiddos in my class seem like they're ready for a break too. Anyway, we did my annual Cranberry Tasting yesterday and it was great fun as usual. I start by reading Cranberry Thanksgiving, a book I've enjoyed for as long as I can remember.

After reading it, each child gets a plate with a raw cranberry, spoonful of cranberry sauce, a few dried cranberries, and a half-slice of cranberry bread. This year each child also got a cup of cranberry juice. I have the kids try the raw cranberry first. Everyone gets a good laugh looking at the neighbors sour faces! It's really funny to see their reactions when some of them take a small bite and others just pop the whole thing in their mouths. Then I tell them that's why everything else they'll taste has sugar in it. I let them enjoy the rest of the snacks.

While they're eating, I put a post-it note on each desk so that everyone can help graph the favorite cranberry treat.

My graph is simple, as you can tell. When we're all done we talk about the graph and the data it shows. The kids talked about it as soon as they came in this morning. I heard "I really liked the cranberry bread." and "I don't want to taste (raw) cranberries again!" One student said his mom had dried cranberries at home too. It sure was fun. Do you do anything like this with your class? What is your favorite Thanksgiving tradition in your classroom?

It's been good to get back to my blog again. Tomorrow I'll share my new long vowel packet I just finished. Thanks for stopping by!