All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

I couldn't resist. It is so funny how many of our classmates are missing their two front teeth :)

Nikolaustag!

In our travels around the globe learning about different cultural traditions, we learned about the German tradition of Nikolaustag.  On December 6th, children put out their empty shoes to be filled with goodies by St. Nikolas. We thought we would give it a try since it was December 6th and were surprised and excited that St. Nikolas found us at WMAES!

 

 

 

 Here's our empty shoes waiting to be filled with goodies.

 We all wore one shoe during math as we waited to see if St. Nikolas would make the trip

to Grand Rapids to leave us a surprise!

 The magic of the season! What excited and happy faces!

Field Trip to Blandford

We had a great time expanding our knowledge of winter ecology at Blandford Nature Center. Thank you to our parent chaperones!

Hands-on Fun!

Friday was full of hands-on fun! All week we have been learning about "how-to" books.  We have talked about how to follow directions from books and also how to write a how-to piece to teach an audience. We followed the directions and planted bulbs to grow Paperwhites in our classroom. They are pretty little white flowers that bloom in the wintertime.  At the end of the day we opened up our craft book, mixed ingredients to make salt dough, and rolled out some salt dough tree ornaments. A little messy, but a lot of fun!

Family Night!

This year we welcomed the winter season with a fun-filled family night complete with games, a bonfire, hayrides, hot cocoa, and live reindeer. I was so happy that many of our classmates came out to enjoy this fun evening! Next family night is in February!

Gratitude Tree

Last month the students filled out special leaves to share what they were thankful for. It was a great lesson in gratitude. The kids didn't want to get rid of the tree after Thanksgiving and a couple of them had the idea to decorate it with snowflakes. After folding and cutting our own snowflakes, the kids wrote one of their favorite things. Each day, one student will share theirs and add it to our "Favorite Things Tree".