Thursday Dec 16th late tonight

Hi folks,
Sorry if you checked and there was nothing up yet!! I am just home. Had a bit of running around to do- 'tis the season!
There were quite a few students aways today- it seems that the 'bug' that has been circulating has finallycaught up with us!!
We hope you enjoyed the Christmas concert last night- thank -you for coming out in such numbers to support us. Congratulations to all the students and teachers who pulled off a Christmas extravaganza. We enjoyed it but we are also glad it is over :) lol

No Homework

General Day
We had fun before music/Band class this morning with a group Christmas Tree puzzle which had all the letters of the different types of trees used for Christmas trees scrambled. Congratulations to the winning team who all earned some mini candy canes for their efforts. The students became quite competitive. Did you know that fir, cypress and pine trees are used for Christmas?

Band class

Ancient Civilizations research time - note taking, resources available for use and atlases and maps for geographical information. The students worked together with other students researching the same civilization so they could share resources and assist one another with information needed. Today I checked that all students were finding the information that was needed and that they had a good understanding of where to find the information that is still needed. Everyone has made a great start on their research notes. We discussed briefly the fact that the students might not use ALL the notes they have when they start to write out their papargraphs and chose the main subtopics for the good version of the research project. That will be more a venture for the new year. My expectation is that the research and notes will be completed by the end of the first week of January.

Afternoon year-end celebration
We voted on the movie Home Alone 14 of 21 students voted for it but only 6 of them really watched it!!

I shared, as promised, hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and candy canes and thanks to Savannah, Ashleigh, Brooke, Callista and Tamara (notice that all were girls) we ahd some home baked goodies and chips to share. As per usual there was more than enough for all. Many thanks.

The students did a bit of a modified gift exchange as so many were away today. I ensured that everyone had a gift to give and I did have to use my back up gifts for a couple but that's why they are there :) In my opinion I believe that every student was both excited to receive a wrapped gift and really appreciated the gift they received. It was fun to watch them and the camraderie that gift giving brought about:)

Congratulations to Angus whose name was pulled for the MP3 player from the reading records and thank-you for your Christmas kindness in giving it to Matt. It brought a tear to my eye. How generous can you be? Thank-you- you have strengthened my belief in the true meaning of the Christmas spirit.
I hope the posters which were runner up prizes are enjoyed - they certainlt seemed to go over well and it seemed again in the true spirit of the season that some students whose names were pulled chose to give the posters that they had just won (chosen) to students who truly wanted them. I think everyone was happy with the outcome.
It was a nice way to end the day.
By the way, we never did finish the movie and no I won't be running it tomorrow!!!
See you for the last day before the break tonmorrow. More fun and excitement- can't wait.
Mrs. J.