Solong to 2012...

Strike a pose! Winter Concert 2012

Any teacher can tell you that December in one hectic month! Keeping up with the festivities of the season while still attending to academics is certainly a challenge!

We finished up our unit on landforms by working together creating  collages. We incorporated a variety of landforms and made a key to include elevations. Being able to work on a team is an important trait to nurture. Organizing yourselves, encouraging each other, and listening to everyone's voice can be a challenge but one well worth taking.

Let's double check the elevations...

We all enjoyed a morning of daffodil planting. Along with Mrs. Berg, we planted daffodils with hundreds of other children around the world. We will all be posting and recording  our results. It will certainly be a great lesson in geography and map skills. Yippee!

Be on the look out for our spring daffodils around campus!

Boy were the children excited about the altar they got to create in Spanish class for a Day of the Dead celebration. They honored Charlotte, the tragic spider heroine of Charlotte's Web. We will always remember her with great fondness.

The children enjoyed learning how to write letters using proper format. Our class mailbox has been packed! We hope the invitations to the concert were a fun surprise. Next up will be writing letters of persuasion.

Math has had us immersed in addition activities. Best of all were the many games that we got to play. We all loved the crazy dice games that incorporated mental math and double digit addition strategies. Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition. It is fun when both skill and luck are involved because then, it really is anybody's game.

One of our highlights this past month was certainly our trip to Kateri. The children were immersed in Native American activities. They made dyes from nature's ingredients, played games with sticks, stones, shells, and antlers and then took part in a naming ceremony. It all added up to a lively day setting the tone for our upcoming unit on Native Americans.

I'm sure I can shred these leaves into thousands of pieces. Just takes concentration!

One of our daily pleasures was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory aloud. The focus skills were visualizing scenes and being able to ask 'thin' and 'thick' questions. There were quite a few engaging discussions that ensued. The most challenging part of the read was at the end when we were allowed only one very tiny nibble of a candy bar. The main character of the story, Charlie Bucket, was so poor that he would receive only one bar of delectable chocolate a year. He would spend a few days just looking at it, and then nibble it ever so gently to make it last. It was excrutiatingly painful but we did it! That little bar lasted us the entire book!

Of course the crowning moment had to be our Wonka holiday party! The  chocolate fountain, original movie, chocolate games, and hidden golden tickets delighted one and all! Many thanks to our class parents for pulling together all the details. I must say, Mrs. Merklinger and I got a little too much pleasure out of seeing the kids try to cut through  frozen wrapped candy bars in winter gear. It was a hysterical sight.

It is always a wonderful moment to see the children 'dressed to the nines' for our holiday concert. Most of them took part in a 3H tradition and 'walked the red carpet'. Who needs Hollywood? We have our own stars!

We have so many wonderful things to learn in the new year. Can't wait!