December highlights

Here is a quick update on some of our activities in December.

December 19th is a half day of school but it will be packed full of fun activities. It will be PJ day. Children are welcome to wear their pajamas to school and to bring a pair of pajamas to donate to a child in need. The Pajama drive will be done in conjunction with Scholastic books. Scholastic will donate a book to go with every pair of pajamas donated. 

December 19th is also graham cracker house decorating day.  As mentioned in an email, Susan and I will be making Graham Cracker houses for each child. If each family can bring in a couple of bags of candy to be used for decoration, they will be put to good use.

CANDY IDEA LIST:

Dots 

gum drops 
sugar cubes
Red Hots 
mini marshmallows
thin licorice ropes 
Skittles
gummy rings 
jelly beans
Good and Plenty 
square pretzels (for windows)
colorful cereal

I am reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  by L. Frank Braum to the class.

In conjunction with reading this story, and after reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the children are learning about stories that contain a journey. This month, they will be putting pencil to paper and trying to write their own "journey" stories.

The children are working on their proof reading skills. I write a few lines on the board that have a variety of mistakes in them, including misuse of upper and lower case letters, spelling mistakes, and lack of punctuation. The children try to find what needs to be fixed. 

There is no lack of light in our classroom this month, despite the decreased amount of daylight. We have started a Science unit on Light. The first task was to brainstorm "Why we need light" and "where does light come from". The next light activity was to use flashlights and a light table to discover what things light can go through and what it can't.