December 17, 2010

Dear Families,

Thank you for the generous gifts and surprises this week. Thank you also for the cards and kind wishes. I appreciate all the support and generosity! A big thank you goes out to all of our volunteers who come to our classroom each month, every other week, every week, or some even twice a week! We depend on you and we are so lucky to have your help in our classroom! Thank you also for the volunteers who prepare weekly homework or math packets at home, and our room parents! We are thankful for all of you!

This week was filled with many busy activities. We spent much of the time finishing our holiday presents for you! These presents are a combination of writing, art, social studies, and computer skills. We also learned how to make pop-up cards for you! We hope you like our gift and will be able to use it next year! There is also an ornament for you to keep!

Our specials this week were: library on Monday, Star of the Week for Evan on Tuesday (you can read about him on our website!), computer lab on Wednesday, and making snowflakes with our buddies on Thursday. Mrs. Rowe announced the WOW (Walk One Week) raffle winners and congratulations to Tess who received a ribbon and Sydney who received a Baja Fresh coupon! Every classroom had at least one raffle winner. In computer lab, we tried our best to finish two ongoing projects. One project was for the cover of your gift, and the other project was our illustrations of the “First Day of Winter” poem. Unfortunately, some students were not finished with their cover pages, but we had to print it out anyways.

Today was our Polar Express Day! The classroom was set-up like a train when the kids arrived in the morning. They sat down in the train just like the children in the book (who are also wearing their pajamas!). I read them the Polar Express story and each child received a bell just like in the story. The children on the Polar Express drank hot chocolate and had cookies, so we did too. We also did a kindness activity where we delivered hot chocolate to all the teachers and staff around the school. One of the most important concepts for me during the holiday season is for students to understand “giving”. So often, kids are focused on only themselves and receiving gifts. I hope that we can teach kids that giving and helping others is so much more rewarding then getting something. Afterwards, we watched the movie version of Polar Express!

I hope your family has a wonderful holiday vacation. I plan on staying local both weeks to spend time with my family and my nieces. For those of you who are traveling, I hope you have safe travels! Today, we had to say a sad goodbye to Nanaka and her family. We will miss you very much! Please keep in touch!

I will see you on Monday, January 3rd! There will be a new AM girl joining us, her name is Aishwarya and she will have a twin sister in Mrs. Van Dick’s classroom. Please welcome her and her family to our class! Our sharing will be a New Year’s resolution when we return. Happy 2011!