We Know How To PARTAAAAY!

Do our Room Parents ROCK, or DO THEY ROCK?? Never in my 8 years of teaching have I ever had room parents who served Prime Rib for a class Christmas party:) Thank you SO very much, Hector and Michele Olavarria, for your generosity and your hard work. 

Just take a look at this HUGE chunk of meat! WOW! It was better than the restaurant. They even whipped up a horse radish sauce that was out of this world. 

The menu was so enticing that some of our dads even took off work to attend the feast!  My husband Jeff was even here! Yes, it was a tough decision between work and prime rib. Hummm? 

When we asked for a volunteer to bring in a fruit platter, we were not expecting a home-made-orange-bowl-gourmet-fruit-delight! Thank you Becky and mom :) 

The kids LOVED the crafts that Mrs. Snawder prepared for them. This kept them calm and engaged for the longest time! Perfect craft for the party, Bel. Thank you!

Oh, by the way, I hope you enjoyed the little snowman that your kids made for you. They worked very hard on them. I thought they turned out SUPER CUTE!

Read-a-Thon

First of all, on behalf of the school, I would like to say a huge THANK YOU for your part in making our very first Read-a-Thon an amazing success! We are thrilled that thousands of dollars were raised not only for our library but also for our sister school in Zambia. 

Our kids had a BLAST every single day. Here are some photos from the various daily themes.

One of my favorites was the "Read with a stuffed animal" day. I could not resist taking pictures of every single one of the kids and posting ALL 17 of them:) Look how adorable they are!!!

Another fun theme was "Read in a foreign language". We were blessed to have a visit from Mrs. Scholz who read Green Eggs and Ham in Italian! It was so beautiful to listen to. The kids were attentive the entire time. 

They loved it when everyone got to find an area under the tables for "Read in a cozy spot" day.

And look at everyone's festive socks for "Read in your Christmas socks" day!

A special thanks to Mrs. Currier who arranged for the Read-a-Thon, and encouraged everyone's participation through these fun themed days. Way to go!!!

Party Planners!!

I LOVE to hear the students getting excited about math! One of the ways to encourage this is through what are called "Performance Task Assessments."

Students get to use their skills in a practical way, and practice their knowledge through "real-life" situations.

Each of the 4 groups came up with their own party to plan. They have a budget of $200, and must decide on the food, snacks, drinks, paper goods, invitations, dessert, etc. 

Below is a short video clip of the groups. I love the sound of learning:)

Riley's Farm

Let me just begin by saying that the high that day was not 39. It was 38. And yes, we froze. And yes...next year, we'll go in October, not in December:)

Other than the freezing cold, our tour was terrific. We were greeted by colonial hosts (with British accents and all!) and taken back in time. 

There were 7 hands-on stations. We started by weaving...

And then moved on to the butter churning station. The lighting was a bit dark, but I tried to get all the kids in action.

A couple of the kids even got to practice proper manners by the gentleman asking the lady for a dance!

Above is the blacksmith, and below are photos of our kids enjoying some good ole outdoor games of long ago. 

They even got to dip their own candles!

This is my favorite photo of our whiny...I mean...wonderful parents who were troopers in the cold! They didn't complain much after 2 hours since their lips were frozen shut. 

After learning from this young lad about colonial weapons and such, we ended our day by eating our lunch on the bus because it was too cold to eat outside.

So...was the field trip worth it? Oooooh, yes. Just take a look at what I got to enjoy that evening :) Oh, and the kids did learn a bunch about Colonial life as well!