Sixth graders team with first graders on Christmas reading project

Sixth+graders+chose+their+favorite+Christmas+books+to+read+to+first+graders.

Kayla Beichler

Sixth graders chose their favorite Christmas books to read to first graders.

Cazen Cowfer and Mikala McCracken

Classic Christmas stories are one of the many memories that each child has.

Sixth grade teachers tapped into that nostalgia this week with a special holiday reading project.

It’s good to get together and share with an audience because then there is a purpose behind it.

— Mrs. Trexler

Sixth grade grade reading classes, with teachers Mrs. Dee Trexler and Mrs. Lauren Wagner, have been discussing narratives and are currently writing holiday themed narratives. On Friday, teachers asked students to bring in their favorite holiday story from when they were 5-6 years old to share with an audience of first graders.

Sixth graders had also created a presentation on their book using the web tool storyboardthat and shared it with their partners.  First grade classes then shared a few songs from their annual musical.

The teachers felt that this would be an opportunity to have an authentic audience to share projects this holiday season.

“It benefits students because they have a live audience that they share their work with,” said Mrs. Trexler. “I used to work as a first grade teacher and we did a lot of group sharing with different audiences. It’s good to get together and share with an audience because then there is a purpose behind it.”

Mrs. Trexler and Mrs. Wagner said the project added a little excitement to the school day with the kids looking forward to the holiday break.

“Our kids were super excited about having first grade come here, they’ve been talking about it for days and were excited for them to come today,” said Mrs. Trexler

“It seemed like first grade was happy to come here and be here and spend time with the bigger kids.” said Mrs. Wagner.