Mrs. McNeal's Buckaroos: Buckaroo news for November 24th

I hope that all of you had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving filled with family and friends. I know that I ate enough for two Thanksgivings:) This blog post is a bit early due to the fact that I will be heading to Gatlinburg, Tennessee on Wednesday for my annual trip with my sister. I will miss my little ones but they are going to be in great hands! Thank you so much for coming to our Thanksgiving performance last week. The children worked very hard on the songs and were incredibly proud of themselves. We learned a lot about what life was like in the near past and the far past with the Pilgrims. We learned that everything tends to change over time but sometimes it has nothing to do with making something better. Sometimes it's for looks:) We took a look at how Mustang cars changed over time as an example of this. I have some vintage car lovers in this class!
For the month of December we will be looking at how cultures around the world celebrate this time of year. The twist is that we will be guided each day by our friendly Elf on the Shelf named Flash. He "appeared" in our room on Monday as soon as his name was said out loud and the children had to search the room to find him! They went nuts looking for him and it was so fun! Everyday he has appeared in a different spot along with artifacts to give us clues as to what country we will be talking about. Today, we learned about Israel on the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah. We learned about the dreidel game and got the chance to play it with friends. Flash brought us a menorah with candles the color of the flag of Israel. We learned about the miracle of the oil and the Maccabees. There is a fun video on YouTube by a group of young men called the Maccabeats. Take a look.
Don't forget that we will be going to a play on Friday in the morning. It will be so much fun for the kiddos but I'm sad that I will miss it.

Here is the schedule of specials for the rest of this week and the beginning of next week: Today - Library Wednesday - P.E. Thursday - Art Friday - Music Monday - Library

Here we are looking for Flash! We thought he was in a box shaped like a house.

S. and S. found him in a basket of books! We knew not to touch him with our bare hands because it might take away his magic and he wouldn't be able to fly back to Santa.