Wow! It has been one crazy, busy week! Our elf, Flash, has been traveling the world to bring back information about holidays in other countries and we've been working hard to take good notes for our mission from Santa. We can't tell you about it yet because it's Top Secret but we will share it with you next week once the mission is complete. Below you will see the "craftivities" that we had to complete for each country as part of our mission. In word study, we have taken a little break from our word study teams to play a game that we love called SPARKLE. Ask your child about this fun way to learn to use the word wall more effectively. In math, we are working on counting with numbers to 120. We have learned about the terms "more than" and "fewer than" to describe numbers as well as counting by tens using ten-frames. In reader's workshop, we have been learning about reindeer and how to read and gather information from nonfiction texts. Ask your child to share what he or she has learned so far about these fascinating creatures.
Next Friday, the children have earned a special treat. They will be able to wear their pajamas to school (again:) and we will be enjoying hot chocolate, cookies and the Polar Express movie.
Our schedule for next week: Monday is P.E. Tuesday is Art Wednesday is Music Thursday is Library and Friday will be P.E. again
Mrs. Rudd has a sign-up for the holiday party that will be next Friday afternoon. If you'd like to help out with this fun time with the little ones please sign up.
F. made a Christmas tree. We made these Christmas trees because we were learning about Germany and that's the country that started Christmas trees. There is no Santa. His name is Kris Kringle. If you don't behave you get sticks. They hide pickle ornaments in trees. Whoever find the pickle gets an extra present.
We learned about Italy. We made brooms because the witch, La Befana, gave treats if you were good like Santa does. She is a nice witch. There were three kings that knocked on her door when she was busy sweeping so she couldn't go see baby Jesus. When she finally went to see Him He was already gone so she is always looking for Him to give Him a gift. She gave the gifts because she always thinks you might be Baby Jesus.
These boys are holding up clogs from Holland and you leave them out on December 5th and Sinter Klaas will come and put treats in your clogs (wooden shoes) just like our stockings. When we were at our house sleeping, Sinter Klaas came and left us treats. Sinter Klaas comes on a boat and when he reaches land he comes on a horse. He has a little guy that comes along with Sinter Klaas and his name is Black Peter. He will chase you with his stick when you are naughty.
We made ornaments that we drew a picture and wrote about one of our traditions. That night, Flash stayed in America and went to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. We drew a picture of what we do each year as our tradition.
The boy is wearing a star hat. It was Wacky Wednesday that day. All of the girls are Saint Lucias and all of the boys were star boys. They celebrate this in Sweden. Their tradition is to kiss under the mistletoe (giggle, giggle). The little kids give food to their parents and to older people who have retired. The oldest girl in the family gets to be in the front of the parade. They celebrate Saint Lucia day to pray to Saint Lucia. She gave food to the ones that were hiding in the dark tunnels because they wanted to worship the way they wanted. Saint Lucia went into an underground tunnel and she wore candles on top of her head to light the way. The candles on that day are not colored. They are white. They only use white lights to decorate. They put candles in the graveyards to remember all their loved ones that have died. Don't cry.
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