A BIG happy December to all of you! It's the most wonderful time of the year :). Whether you are celebrating Christmas or not I hope this month is marked with peace, family and time together making memories.
As we enter December, we are going to be looking at some new topics including: matter (in science), addition and subtraction (starting small and building up to 1000) and telling time, looking at the main characters in fictional text, building vocabulary, long and short vowels, practicing fluency while reading, create pieces of writing for a variety of audiences and a punctuation focus in writing (in English language arts)! We will pick social studies back up in January, as we blitz some science this month.
As the Christmas season is upon us, I like to plan some special opportunities to celebrate with our kiddos, but also give them opportunities to be GENEROUS. Generous with their time, talents and energy. I have a variety of plans that will involve looking outward to see where we can offer small acts, with great love! One of the best secrets in life is that joy is found in giving, and I love to make space for those opportunities (especially at this time of year, when there's so much consumption).
A student in the school (Jude) has organized a toy drive for kids staying at the Alberta Children's Hospital over Christmas. If you would like to go out and donate a new, unwrapped toy, that would be awesome! The deadline is December 7th.
Here are some upcoming dates where I invite you to come and join all the Grade 3's as we do some special projects:
There are 3 cooking dates where we would love parent volunteers as we explore matter, through baking:
Wednesday December 6th: 9:00 am - 11:15 am - playdoh
Tuesday December 12th: 9:00 am - 11:15 am - salt dough
Tuesday December 19th: 9:00 am - 11:15 am - cookies
The following 3 dates are other school activities where we would love to have you join us too!
Wednesday December 6th: 2:00 - 3:50 pm - candy cane door knocking in the neighborhood! A thank you to our neighbors for sharing their green space and ponds with us!
Wednesday December 13th: we will be caroling instead of our regular outdoor school programming!
Thursday December 14th: handbell and Sr. Choir Christmas performance (schoolwide at 2:30 in the gym).
Wednesday December 20th: 8:45 am - 11:15 am - Pavan park winter hot chocolate walk and outdoor read aloud. **your child will need to bring in a labeled to-go mug on Monday December 20th please! Thank you!
Thursday December 21st: 9:00 - 11:15 am - Christmas craft center morning! We need up to 6 volunteers to come and help us run craft stations.
December Birthdays!
We will be celebrating Lucia December 8th, Julianna December 15th and Harker December 18th!
Special Theme/Dress Up Days:
Monday December 18th: Red and Green Day
Tuesday December 19th: Tinsel Tuesday
Wednesday December 20th: Holiday Socks and Sweaters
Thursday December 21st: Christmas Character Day
Friday December 22nd: LAST DAY BEFORE BREAK: PJ Day! The kiddos want to do a homemade secret Santa this day. They will have the month to make something at home, could be a craft, ornament, letter, drawing, etc. They can then wrap it and bring it to school for our homemade secret Santa gift exchange (so cute)!
We will be making a December calendar and filling in all the special events next week to send home so that you can have this on hand. I know there are so many things to keep at the forefront in months like this :). Thanks for your support and participation. If there is anything you need from me please let me know!
I am looking for a few supplies as we head into all this fun! If you are able to donate any of the following, please send me an email and I can let you know the specific quantities!
- Christmas cookie cutters (that we could borrow and use for playdoh, I have some)
- hot chocolate powder (extra large container)
- toilet paper tubes/paper towel tubes/wrapping paper tubes ... I need tons of these! Please send and save as many as you have!
- mini candy canes (larger quantity to hand out to the neighborhood)
- 25 large candy canes
- jingle bells (from the dollar store) a variety is great!
- red, white and brown pipe cleaners (one bag of each)
- red and white pony beads
- 25 clear shatterproof Christmas balls
- lots of different shapes/styles of pasta (each a single bag) for pasta snowflakes (see below).
PHEW! I think that's all for now. As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns, please reach out! It's a pleasure being with your children each day.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Ms. M
P.S. You'll see in the attached our Christmas letter project to those staying in the hospital over the Christmas season, two beautiful outdoor school days, one a nest inquiry project and the other a nature board game challenge, some classroom learning, our rangoli time with Ishani where she taught us about Diwali and some other sweet moments from the last two weeks :)
