Polar Express

I have not told the kids about this yet but next Thursday is Polar Express Day for the younger kids. We will be doing fun Polar Express activities in our rooms in the morning and at noon we will be moving to the gym to watch the Polar Express. During the intermission we will be having hot chocolate and cookies that we decorated during our Wednesday literacy centers with first grade. In our room we will be making a ticket to get on the train and some other fun activities. Mrs. Parsons has given the okay for the kids to wear their pajamas this day so we can feel like we are on the "Polar Express" too. I do want the kids to wear tennis shoes though. I will let the kids know about this next week but I wanted to give you the heads up.

Box Tops

Please save those box tops and send them into school. These box tops earn cash for our school and there is currently a contest going on.

Seeds for Hope

We are at 23 canned food items. Yesterday during math we graphed how many cans we collected and discussed how we were close to being half way to our goal of 50 cans by Christmas break. Please help us if you can.

Adoration

Today I took the children into the chapel at church to spend time with Jesus during Adoration. We entered the chapel in silence, genuflected at the alter, said a prayer, sang Jesus a song,  and then spent time in silence with our friend Jesus. There were a few other people in the chapel as well. Many were some of the older parishioners. Upon leaving one of the women pulled me aside and she said that she was so pleased to see the children come to Adoration and behave appropriately. I thanked her and she proceeded to greet each of the children. At that moment I again realized how each of the children are growing not only academically but socially as well. I was very proud of your children.

First In Math

The First In Math winners this week were Cade, Frances, Allison, Henry and Lucas. Great job kids. The top five players in the room are Lucas, Henry, Frances, Caroline, and Allison.

Surprises

I was shocked to say the least when I got to school this morning to find that my room was a mess with chairs and other things knocked over. Come to find out that the Elf from the Shelf had come to visit for the day to see who has being naughty or nice. He mostly find nice :). Sometime during the evening St. Nicholas stopped by to leave us a treat in the shoes we created on Monday.  Today is the feast of St. Nicholas. We read a story today called Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett and we got to decorated gingerbread friends cookies this afternoon. We ate one of the friends for snack and the other came home in your child's backpack. Each child was instructed to retell the story of Gingerbread Friends to you tonight so you may want to ask if the don't remember.

Listening center

We have a listening center available to the children during Daily 5. Listening to reading is very beneficial to beginning readers. I am always in need of stories on  cassette tape or on CD. If you have anything like this that you would like to donate to the classroom listening center it would be greatly appreciated by me and the children. It does not matter if there is a book to go with it but it is very helpful if it does.

Book Exchange

We will be having a book exchange in our classroom. I am asking each child to bring in a kindergarten age appropriate book (new or very gently used) wrapped to place under our classroom Christmas tree. You might want to indicate if it is for a boy, girl, or both on the package. These are due by Monday, December 17th.

Service Project

Our school wide service project for Lent is Seeds for Hope which is a  shelter for women and their children who are in need. Kindergarten is responsible for bringing in canned food items. I know we just did this but any contribution you can make is deeply appreciated by this organization. Our class goal is 50. We will be able to count those cans by ones, tens, and fives which is a math standard for kindergarten so we are learning to give to others in need as well as practicing some very important math sills.

Building

Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who came in to help the children build their gingerbread houses today. They are all together and ready to decorate tomorrow. Thank you for sending in your child's donation to this project. We had 100% participation and that is greatly appreciated. We will be decorating tomorrow if you would like to join us. Grandparents are welcome as well. The kids are having a ball with this project!

First In Math

The following children were First In Math winners of the day last week.  Caroline, Lucas. Christian, Cade and Henry. Good job kids!

Field Trip

We just got back from the field trip and we had a blast! We got to hear a story about the gingerbread man, go back in time and learn how gingerbread cookies were made long ago,  and search for the gingerbread man in a barn with animals. We finally found him and got to take our picture with him and do a dance. From there we decorated a gingerbread man cookie and eat it for snack. After all of those fun activities we toured the gingerbread houses that were on display to get some ideas. Please ask your child about their favorite gingerbread house. Please join us as we build our houses and decorate them tomorrow and Wednesday. Times were listed on the information sheet sent out last week.