Sunday, December 23, 2012

Sugar Bunny, Gingerbread, Snowstorm Walk, and The Hobbit x2

Wow! How did 2012 wrap up so quickly?
Here are a few highlights from the end of our year...

Sugar Bunny joined our family,
she is a cutie who LOVES sweets!
 She also LOVES the dogs and Tiny Kitty 
and chewing through the Christmas lights!

This pic was taken BEFORE she chewed the living room lights!

We spent one day decorating gingerbread cookies and houses!



 LOVELOVELOVE!
 Kind of looks like a gingerbread house?

Okay...John would like to hike the Appalachian Trail someday so every now and then he like to "train" me for this experience.
Soooo during one beautiful snowstorm we hiked up the plowline trail (Bronk State Lands)
along with the 3 dogs, a 20 lb pack, and very very very heavy winter boots....
We walked to the END of the trail where it overlooks
 Minnesota City.
John says it is ONLY 6 miles...I think he means ONE WAY not round trip!
 Pippin LOVED the snow and the hike!
 Oh, but it was breathtakingly beautiful!
 Oops, Jack and Billy,the little dogs, got so full of snow that they couldn't walk...sooo we carried them!
Twenty pounds of dog and 10 pounds of snow!
John tucked Jack, who only has 3 legs to begin with, into his already 20 pound bag....cute! 
 Look at Billy legs!  Snow legs!
We seriously couldn't keep it from packing on him so he could walk!  Crazy!
 Finally at the bottom!
Looks like I am making a snow angel? Nope!
I am dead tired! Remember that 20 pound pack John took up the bluff?  NOT  A SINGLE SNACK in it!
NOT.ONE.PIECE. OF. CHOCOLATE!!!
What?  I had to survive on a pocket of candy corn that I had to share with the dogs!
 Note to self: pack your own bag next time!
 Beautiful!

Maeve finished her drivers' training classwork in December.  On her last class night, we also went to visit the Holiday Train!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that thing!

The happiest moment of the beginning part of December?
The MIDNIGHT showing of THE HOBBIT!
 Don't you love that banner?
Me too! 
I surprised the kids with it the morning of the night that we were going!
 Before the movie, we had Fionn's Winter concert.
He is playing the trombone!
Nice job, Kiddos!

More great banner pieces....


 No matter what reviews you've heard,
The Hobbit is quite good!
Not as good at The Lord of The Rings,
but neither is the book...
Still a very good, well told story and movie!


Here is Maeve's Christmas Pie...
Pi!  Get it? 3.1415.....Pi!

December brought many opportunities to
wrap gifts!  The k kids loved this tower of presents!

Here are a few practice trains for the polar express party....graham crackers and frosting and sweeties for details!  Cute and easy!

Our first gift of Christmas!
Graham and Melissa sent a fun family game called Telestrations and those great "Star" glasses!
I seriously want to wear them all the time...they make every small bright light look like a star...
 Kind of like this only bigger stars!
Amazing!

Yes, Maeve, John, and I went to THE HOBBIT
again!   Our Holiday movie treat!
Fionn and Sorch opted to stay home and clean for Christmas!  Weirdos!
Have a love filled and joyful Holiday Season!

Week 16 Christmas themes, Switch-A-Roo Day, Polar Express party!


First of all,
Thank you for all the generous, cute, thoughtful gifts from you and your children!
I am a blessed teacher!

Here's wishing you and yours a peaceful, love filled 
Holiday Season!
May 2013 be blessed with family, friends, and good times!
The last week of Kindergarten before 
Winter break was just packed with fun and learning!

Here are a few of our morning challenges:
Polar bear sentences!

Polar bear number order



Penguin number awareness...
We matched the number word with the numeral, the tens frame, and the tally!


One of my favorite Holiday projects,
we learned how to make paper chains as we created a count down to Christmas!


Oh my! Here we are so dressed up and ready for our Winter concert on Monday afternoon!
The k kids were so cute!



Tuesday was reindeer day!
We read about reindeer and created these cuties....
A whole herd of adorableness!


In the afternoon we had centers...
This table is working on reindeer beginning sounds!


Here we are spinning tops to write the Holiday word the top landed on...printing practice is priceless!



This center is Santa's Sleigh Surprise!
We counted up all the gift using counters if necessary.


This was Holiday patterns!



And finally, this is our "brain break" table.
We created these adorable button wreaths!


This huge card was part of our
Christmas Card Workshop

Somehow, I forgot to show you our adorable penguins from last week....
we talked about how penguins come in different sizes...
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that tiny one!

Here is our Has/Can/Is chart 
about penguins.
These K Kids have a mind for science!

These reindeer are also one of my favorites...
a new PINTEREST project for this year!



These Inuit children are also from last week 
as we learned about this resourceful culture.


Oh, a wonderful free choice area...
THE CHRISTMAS BOX!
This is just a copy paper box brimming with Christmas Junk!
Fun to sort, count, use our imaginations with!

This is a close up of the Santa Spinner center...
what a fun way to print!

On Wednesday we had our Kindergarten
Switch-a-Roo day!
While my kiddos were making a bag and card with Mrs.Pilger or the gift with Mrs. Kalmes,
I had their kids in to make a lovely
hand print poem for you!


We also created the wrapping paper to  protect our project and keep it secret!


This year I could not read the poem aloud...
It brings tears to my eyes and with the tragic events 
last week, I just could not get through it.
Your little ones are soooo precious!
Even when painty and messy!

With the Winter storm bearing down on us,
I sent the k kids gifts home a day early.
Good call!

Thursday was our first snow day of the year!

Friday we tried to catch up!
We did have wonderfully delicious
HOT COCOA in the crock pot!
Our roomed smelled heavenly!

These little Polar Express trains 
were fun and easy to make....


Here is our HOT COCOA bar before....

and during our snack!  
YUMMY!

Mr.O'Duggan bought all cute little Santa mugs
for our class. 
He is such a sweetie!  Thank you, John!
Hope they all made it  home in one piece!




Oh My Goodness!
Did you get a gander at the adorable
RICE CRISPIE Train that Gabby
and her family made for us?
Unbelievable cute!
Thank you sooooo much,
Darien  and  Christina!


Here is a sweet pic of a k kid thoroughly 
enjoying his hot cocoa creation as we watched
the song from Polar Express,
HOT CHOCOLATE!
Here is the link to it on youtube:

If you can see the printing,
you will notice our chart was ready for Thursday or Friday....now that was prepared!
Here are some of the books we read this week:
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!/If I Ran the Zoo The Polar ExpressMeet the Reindeer: A 15-Minute Book for Early Readers
Coming up for our first few days back in 2013:
Reading: Letter Hh, star word 'a', segmentation
Math: Topic 7 Geometric Shapes
Theme: Winter and Mittens
See you in 2013!

WELCOME!

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