Monday, January 1, 2018

Week 17: Community Meeting and Winter Solstice!

Dear Parents,

Tying up the loose ends of 2017!  With all the Solstice activities going on I forgot to make these post public!  So I guess you can look back on 2017 with smiles as we start off in 2018! 

This is our last week of school before the Solstice break.  We spent most of this week being very excited as we finished talking about Hanukkah and began talking about Christmas.  This whole week was packed with activities it seemed, but we found time for free choice work and got out to play in the snow. 

Monday:  At circle today we had a special birthday celebration for E**.  Happy Birthday E** and thank you for the class gifts of fresh cut flowers, fresh pepper for food prep works, bead stringing work, and Press Here, by Herve Tullet. We also had to organize tomorrow’s community meeting that we were hosting.  Many students bravely volunteered to introduce a part or talk about their works.  Popular works today focused on the new works, works preparing us for tomorrow’s meeting and our solstices projects.

Tuesday:  Today is Community Meeting hosted by the Preschool.  We are all very excited.  We had early Spanish Class with Sra. Rosa, so that we could a little time reviewing our roles right before the meeting at 11 am.  The students stood in two rows and sang the continent song in English and Spanish without adult prompting, and some held up their push pin maps to represent the continent sang.  After the performance, our students talked about a few of their favorite works (Skip Counting, Painting ornaments, Holiday Words, and letter writing).  Then a few pairs of students introduced each class and invited them to talk about their current works.  All of our students did an amazing job, standing bravely in front of our school.  After community meeting, we went out to enjoy the beautiful snow and icicles.  Afternoon works were open to the children, but these hard workers continued on push pin maps and solstice projects.  I am amazed at their drive!

Wednesday:  Today is a busy day!  We have some very excited students trying to finish up their solstice projects, while others trying hard to maintain their goal lists, and others just enjoying new works celebrating the season.  We talked about Christmas and sang Christmas songs.  Popular works include:  Stamp Game, Ornament placing, painting, reading, coordination works, Bank Game, tracing books and skip counting. 

Thursday:  It’s the Solstice!  We talked about what that means at morning circle (Winter Solstice means the earth tilts radically away from the sun, causing the longest night.)  We also talked about how if the northern hemisphere is tilting radically away from the sun, then the southern hemisphere is tilting toward tot eh sun, thus they have their summer solstice (longest day).  I don’t expect much of that to stick, but the thought that Santa travels around South America wearing shorts might stick with them!  The children had special work duties preparing the air popped popcorn while the teachers blocked the sunlight from the windows and set up the projector.  We watch The Snowman, which is a children’s’ picture book without words by Raymond Briggs.  Afterwards we went outside to enjoy the fresh air, and then had lunch.  We sang a few more songs, read a few Christmas stories, and then had an optional second short movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas. 

On behalf of our staff, we hope everyone has a safe and happy Solstice Season.  We will see everyone’s smiling faces next year!

Important dates to remember: 
Holiday Break Dec 22- Jan 1st. 
(School Starts Jan 2nd)
January 17th – Family Night
January 31 – Open House
Feb 26-March 2nd - Mid winter break. 



























No comments:

Post a Comment