December was such an exciting month - we started off talking about transportation for the first two weeks, and we really tried to hold back the holidays as long as we could. We had large group projects going on in our classroom, while at the same time kids were busy at all centers creating gifts for their parents and family members. The week that Hanukkah started we had a great visit from Marna (one of our parents) in our AM class and she brought a Hanukkah book to read to the class, as well as some chocolate gelt, a menorah, and a few dreidels. We wrapped up her visit by enjoying her homemade latkes and applesauce for snack. I think the kids really enjoyed having a special visitor and special topic to learn about and we certainly all thought the latkes were yummy!
We had an exciting trip planned on the Polar Express for both of our classes - so the first step was going to be turning all of our cardboard into a train that we could all fit on. Most of the work was done by our PM class - they used black crayons to color in the boxes, and we decided which boxes would fit best in certain areas of the train. All you need is a little imagination and we had ourselves an engine and a passenger car.
The day of the Polar Express had finally arrived! Just as in the book our kids arrived at school in their pajamas ready to embark on a midnight journey to the North Pole. With their Polar Express tickets in hand we settled in our seats on the train. Miss Misty asked us all to close our eyes and smell the hot cocoa in the air and feel the chill of being outside in the middle of the night. We loaded the engine full of coal and blew the train whistle....off we went! Miss Misty read the book to the kids and at the end of the story we again closed our eyes and imagined what it would look like when we all stepped off the train at the North Pole. We all enjoyed hot cocoa and snacks and then re-entered the train to return to Incline Village. To our surprise - once we returned there was a sound outside our classroom door..... someone had left a large bag full of silver bells, one for each child! (In the book, the narrator of the story receives a silver bell from Santa's sleigh as the first gift of Christmas, from Santa himself). All in all our trip turned out to be great fun and a magical time was had by all!
We wrapped up our amazing month with successful holiday parties in both classes. Thank you to all of our parents and family members who came to hear your children sing and celebrate the holidays together. We practiced so many holiday songs throughout the month it was difficult to narrow down our performance choices to just a few. The kids all sang and performed wonderfully and I'm sure that you all captured some adorable photos. We made some last minute reindeer headbands right before our parties and I think they turned out to be such a cute addition. We hope you enjoyed our time together at the parties, and that you have fabulous holiday break time with your families for the next few weeks. We'll see you back at school on January 9th!
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