Week of December 18-22

Dear families,

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Thank you so much for all the wonderful gifts and the beautiful poinsettia! You are so kind!!!

This past week the little elves in Room 166 were very busy! They wrapped presents and wrote cards in the "North Pole," learned a spelling song called "Santa," wrote cards to their Reading Buddies, learned about Hanukkah and made a Star of David ornament, sequenced the events from the beautiful story "The Polar Express," touched a real sleigh bell, read and coloured a booklet called "To the North Pole," estimated and counted candy canes, graphed who likes and who doesn't like candy canes, danced at the Holiday Dance-a-thon, sang carols with the whole school, made ornaments and crafts at our Holiday Party, played outside in the snow, and got a letter back from Santa!

Thank you so much to Hudson's, Sarah's, Mia's, Kate's and Ella's moms who organized and helped the children make wonderful crafts at our Holiday Party! Thank you as well to Jackson's dad who was this week's Mystery Reader!

The SKs also measured holiday things using non-standard units of measurement (stones), and we read lots of holiday books. All the children read a book about Christmas Grumps (kind of like the Grinch) and wrote and drew a picture about how they would "make a Grump grin."

There were no snuggle books sent home this Friday. The words of the week were HE and SHE.

Here is a website with ideas to support the mindful exercises we do during Quiet Thinking Time: www.tricycle.org/trikedaily/three-poems-children-mindfulness. We will be doing some more "Cosmic Yoga" in the new year.

It was our turn to use the iPads last week and the children practised their coding skills with the "Box Island" and "Scratch Jr." apps.

I have sent in a request to the Scientist-in-the Classroom website for April 20 in the morning for the "I Can Be A Scientist" session. When this date is confirmed I will let Tiffany and Tara know so that they can coordinate volunteers.

That's the news for this week! When we return from our holidays the children will be learning about Germs and Healthy Habits, as well as studying The Gingerbread Man fairy tale. Thank you in advance to Elea's mom Dr. Vivian Wong for volunteering to teach the children about germs and staying healthy!

I hope you have a WONDERFUL holiday and I wish you good health and much happiness in 2018! See you on January 8th!

Mrs. Tyndall