After Christmas Sales

        

          Tomorrow is the beginning of the new year -- 2015 -- and I have one more day at home before I go back to work. Friday is actually an optional work day, but I want to get all the Christmas stuff put away and get my classroom ready for January, so I plan to be at school.  It has actually been a little weird to go to the after Christmas sales.  I walked through Walmart today and saw that all the Christmas stuff was 75% off. I paused in front of the stockings -- I usually buy about 25 of them when they go on sale so I will have them for next year's kindergarten class. But next year I will be retired, so I don't need to buy anything.  Not ANYTHING for my class.  I found that I don't hardly know how to shop when I  am not filling my cart with things for my class. I don't need a new Christmas shirt because there will be no little kids to enjoy it. No New Christmas story books for next year. I still have half a year to teach, but I am already starting to feel a little lost.  I mean, I WANT to retire -- I have other things to do and maybe I will finally be able to get my house cleaned up when I get rid of all the teacher books and supplies that fill baskets and shelves and boxes and closets. But I haven't exactly figured out who I will be when I am not "Teacher."  I have a few months to figure that out though -- and lots of teaching left to get my kids ready for first grade.

          HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A visit from Santa!

 

       My students thought it was funny when I sat on Santa's lap.....

         But they roared with laughter when he kissed me under the mistletoe!

     Every child got to get their picture taken withSanta Claus.  One little boy said, "This is the best day of my life -- I can't believe I got to sit on Santa's lap!

      Here are a couple pictures for moms who I know will look at my blog.  If your child is in my room, please let me know that you look at my blog and I will be sure to put pictures on for you, too!

     

   

   Merry Christmas!!!

Lots to Do in December!

     

We only have 14 1/2 days of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so the days are jam-packed with activities as we try to squeeze in all the learning and fun we can! 

     Last week was all about gingerbread stories. I have plenty of versions of the "Gingerbread Man" to share and compare, and we are also working on a musical play to perform next week.  I plan to invite the families to come to the performance of "The Tale of the Gingerbread Man" one afternoon next week.  The 

Children made cinnamon gingerbread ornaments That made our room smell really good, and did a lot of writing and math activities that involved gingerbread.

One of my favorite assignments was the family project to make a disguise for a gingerbread man so the fox would not recognize him.  The had a LOT of ninja turtle disguises, but I loved the creativity.  They made a great bulletin board, too.

Here are a few close-ups.

    Our school Christmas performance was Monday evening.  The kids did a good job -- first time on stage for some of them.

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We have been learning about Christmas and other holidays around the world -- Germany, the Netherlands , Mexico, China, etc. we will bind these in a book for the kids to take home.

   Today I read a Jan Brett book, "The Hat" and gave out warm woolen hats to each child. They were made by Mrs. Carney, a former teacher who generously gives these handmade hats to my class every year.

   After each child chose a hat, they made thank you cards and colored a picture of their own hat.

  The most exciting part of today was a visit from Mrs. Santa Claus.  The kids had lots to tell her about what they want for Christmas!

    We even squeezed in time to make another Christmas ornament -- thank you, Mrs. Austin for getting it ready! And thanks to everyone who donated tp rolls.

And merry Christmas to all!!

Field Day -- What Happened to October?

      What happened to October??  Seems like we just had time to carve a pumpkin and make bats and it was over!  Making a jack-o-lantern was lots of fun. The children voted on the shapes to use and all but one stuck their hands in to pull out the yucky stuff before I started carving. Afterwards they drew pictures and wrote in their journals.  Unfortunately, the inside got all moldy before Halloween, but it made a really creepy looking decoration for trick or treaters!

    

     

   

            I am really pleased with the progress the class is making with their writing.  Look at this --

    capital letters and lots of words spelled correctly.  She even wrote 2 sentences!! And in case 

    you can't read kid writing, that says "Bat Woman."  She did this with no help!

     We also used the pumpkin theme to make math more interesting..  We were doing lots of practice on counting to 20  and recognizing numbers to 10 last month. The next goal will be counting to 30 and writing numbers in the teens.  

   

     

    

   

      We enjoyed seeing the creativity of the family jack - o - lantern project -- some really put a lot of effort into making pretty pumpkins.  Here's one with lots of color.

   

     And then, as if Halloween and thoughts of trick or treating was not exciting enough, we had Field Day!  Here are a few pictures of all that fun.

      

    

     

    

   

   

  

    The sack race looked like so much fun that Daniel's mom tried it too!

  

   

                                  

             This boy really knew how to kick that ball!

       All ready for tug of war.  The teenagers who were running the event told them to line up boys vs. girls -- but since we have 14 boys and only 5 girls, that didn't quite seem fair...

     

   We all had a wonderful time, and I appreciated having a few parents there to cheer them on.

And it was not all about winning, since we didn't give out trophies or ribbons -- it was all about FUN!

    

Fire truck!

   Such a busy week -- learning all about bats and starting math assessments and progress monitoring --  but we did squeeze in a little visit with the firemen when they came to Valmead for the Boys Book Club.  We just had 10 minutes before dismissal, but I got a few cute pictures to share. It is past midnight and I have bus duty in the morning, so no time to write an actual blog. So here are the pictures and I am going to bed!