Good Morning,
The countdown to the holidays is on!!
Only five more days of school..how did that happen? Well I must say that the children have become such great little workers and have shown such growth in both behaviour and accomplishments.
I am very impressed. I was particularly proud of how well they did on Friday during our Gingerbread House decorating day. What a day that was!! I had my daughter (Abby) and her friend Katie in to help all day and in the afternoon we had Emilia (Francesca's mom) and Lindsay ( Hadley and Tea's mom in) and they all commented on how focused and awesome the children were. They actively listened to directions, they were cooperative and shared when they built their houses, they created marvelous structures and showed such pride in their accomplishments. They were amazing!!
The houses will be ready to take home on Monday...we needed to let some of them dry so they wouldnt fall apart on the way home..but please come and get them on Monday. Daycare children will take them downstairs with them..but if you come in the morning you are more than welcome to take it home with you then.
A big thank you to Emilia for making our wonderful icing.
Lindsay and Abby and Katie for being there to set up our little stations, for supporting the children and for the assistance in the cleanup. And to the children who brought in a lot of candy to share and for their awesome attitudes!!

So we have a busy (but fun) week ahead:
Monday to Friday: Sing a long in the gym. Off to a running start is cancelled this week. The children are to come upstairs, drop their backpacks off, and if my door is open, come inside and wait and we will walk down. If my door is closed, then we are already downstairs. Have your child join us where we sit for assemblies.

Monday afternoon: My volunteer will be in to work on the "platter". For the gala, which will be in February, each division is responsible for painting a platter. Traditionally, I do the beautiful flower garden..and we have started..thanks to Katie. It is already looking amazing. We will continue it on Monday. It will be up for bids in February and is such a wonderful addition to the family house!! 

Tuesday afternoon: We will gather in family groupings and do a holiday read. The buddies will get together and the children will just read the books in the classroom

Wednesday: Our roots of empathy baby will be coming in for a visit. I wonder how big baby Liya will be now???

Friday: Mrs. Biorn is taking all of the primary children into the library for a Holiday film from 130 till 230.

As my present to the children this year...I am giving them the gift of play. They were soo excited. So everyone will get at least an hour of free play a day. Merry Christmas!!

With that...I wish everyone a great last week of school and hope to see and say goodbye to everyone before you leave for the break.
Have a great day.
teri

The grade ones ...group bake gingerbread crackle cookies...they were very delicious!

This is the recipe!! (and Hjalmar!)

Miss Ginas grade four class came in to tell us about the celebration of St. Lucia. Earlier we joined her class for a little talk and video. St. Lucia is celebrated in Sweden.

The start of the decoration process!

 Even Katie and Abby enjoy decorating!!

And now we are done...lily brings the first one out to start our village!

And there it is...our village!!!

Hi families,
This is rather late for me...but I had visitors this weekend and as a result this blog has been postponed. I hope it finds everyone well and happy and enjoying their weekend.
We had a busy week at school with visiting guest teachers.
On Wednesday Jung came in and talked about things that make us cry or what we do when we see other people cry. The children were very engaged when Jung came in.
Deana came in and talked about what the indigenous people did to prepare for winter. She read a beautiful book about the Indigenous people of the Arctic. Then the children did another wonderful piece of art and writing.
One of the things that the children have ALL been working on is ACTIVE LISTENING.
Active Listening means...your eyes are looking at the speaker.
Your body is pointing towards the speaker.
Your ears are listening to what the speaker is saying.
Your brain is processing the information and your mouth is still until it is ready to answer or ask a question.
Many of the children are excellent at Active Listening and many are still working at it.
Encouraging active listening at home is very important.

During this week we learned about Hannukah.
We read many stories about Hannukah and then we made Latkes.
The children LOVED the latkes. Thank you to Theo's mom for frying up the latkes. YUm
To make latkes you need:
5 potatoes
three carrots
one small onion
Shred these either on a hand grater or in a food processor (thats what we did)
Then when all of this is shredded, add two eggs, half a cup of flour, and some salt.
Mix it all up..then fry in "miracle oil". We used olive oil, but often i use just canola oil.
It was very delicious!!!
The pictures do not do it justice!!

So VERY IMPORTANT!!!
This next Friday, December 14th, we will be doing our Gingerbread Houses!!
I love this time of the year!!!
To help us with this fun fun time, we need the children to all bring a small 250 ml milk container. This milk container is the base for the graham crackers. We cannot use bigger containers. Just these small ones. Please bring it in washed and i will glue it to the base. I have plenty of cardboard to do this.
For our decorating the children are to bring in some candy. We share the candy. Some ideas for decorating the houses are smarties, lifesavers, jellies, chocolate chips, marshmellows, candy canes....the list can go on!! Anything that you want to send ....send. But remember we share!
Abby (my baby) and her friend Katie will be in to help with the decorating. Also, Emilia and Lindsay. (Francesca, Hadley and Tea's moms). Bring in a bag to cover the gingerbread house, so the children will be able to take it home without getting wet!!
I LOVE THIS TIME OF THE YEAR!!!
With that,
Have a great evening!!
See you all tomorrow
xo
Teri

Jung reads to the children.

Our ingredients for our latkes.

Alex works on his Roots of Empathy project while Lily works on her Hannukah project.

Meanwhile JO makes the latkes as the children watch on!

More latkes being cooked!

Happy Hannukah to all of our Jewish friends and family!!

Good Morning Everyone,
Can you believe it is December already? Time is zooming and before you know it, it will be the winter holidays. Wow, time flies when you are having fun.
You will see some fun happening in class, especially this Friday. I could see that the children were seeming rather fatigued and so instead of doing this huge art project I thought we would make pattern holiday chains. The children grouped into partners (if they wanted to) and just made chains. This simple activity was an activity that inspired teamwork, laughter, sharing and comments of this is so much fun! It was a reminder to me that children need to do these types of activities. It doesnt have to be a big difficult project to be successful and inspiring. I took some pictures of them showing off their chains.

This last week we also had Deana in to talk to us about the wolf in the Tsleil Waututh (spelling??) group. She read us a legend on the wolf and then gave us some interesting facts on the wolf. The wolf is known as the communicator. We will be working on this in class, communicating our needs and wants with each other in an appropriate way. In fact one of the things we discussed with the children that if in play during recess and lunch (or anytime else) if someone says Stop...then you stop doing what you are doing. If someone says NO then you listen and hear what they are saying. Learning to communicate in peaceful ways is an important part of our social and emotional learning. We will be discussing this more in the next few weeks. Please encourage your child to follow the simple adages...no means no and stop means stop!!

Jung came in with Christina and baby Liya. That was sooo much fun. Liya has grown sooo much already! She can grab toys now and was very interested in looking at all the children! Baby Liya also communicates her needs by crying as she cannot talk and use her words yet.

In math the grade ones have begun their adding and subtracting unit using hands on manipulatives. While the grade twos continue to practice different strategies for learning how to add and subtract single unit digits.

We will be ending our unit on living and non-living with a little look at squirrels...a living creature and then beginning a mini unit on a non-living creature..the gingerbread man. That will take us till the end of December!! 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our holiday love hampers. They are certainly full of love!!
With that,
Enjoy your Sunday , enjoy the pictures, and I will see you on Monday.
Take care,
teri

The grade ones were all writing these frog number stories in their head...so they would tell the story in their brain and then write it down in numbers. It was very cute to see them working so quietly and independently.

Christina and baby Liya

Baby Liya is chewing on her hands more

The children all show their chains. 

The children each picked an animal from a series of pictures and they wrote a poem about themselves being that animal. They are wow poems!

The book the Six Cedar Trees that we will be focusing on over the next year. Each animal has its own identification and own social emotional topic that we will be talking about. The wolf is what we are starting to talk about right now...the wolf is the communicator.