Smile Words and more Gingerbread

Today one of our reading activites included a new word game called smile words. We start with a three letter word like men. Students can change one letter to make a word. By the end of the activity our word list read like this: men, met, bet, set, sat, bat, cat, and cut. The previous word can be only changed by one letter and letter positions must remain the same. We also finished our math game where we rolled a gingerbread man. Each number on the die represented something else to decorate our gingerbread man/woman with. Andrew was adamant, "You need to do this again next year!" Thanks Andrew...we will!

Madame Morgan arrived for french class teaching a song with actions and movement. On a day when rain kept us inside it was a great chance to laugh and sing in French. The name of the song is Passe, Passera and you can find a video of it on the YouTube site. We'll learn how to import those soon.

We also received three more postcards from classrooms all across America. Today we heard from the states of Montana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The school in Montana has 11 students in K-6 and 40 in the whole town. Children still ride horses to school which everyone thought was so cool! "They are so lucky!"

It's the most wonderful time of the year...right!?

Where has the time gone? I skip a day of blogging and then a week goes by without even realizing it! It is such a busy time of year that it's hard to take a breath and enjoy each and every moment...at least for me. Ander's mom stopped by at lunch time to let me know he wouldn't be here for the rest of the week. Her cousin, a 47-year-old orthodontist, passed away suddenly of a heart attack on Sunday. Each day we have is a gift. I need to remember that.

Today we made some more memories. Each morning for the past several weeks, Ms. House, comes and takes a small group of students to work with them in the Design Center on a small project. This visit is a favorite...making paper airplanes! Now for teachers it can be a bit trying at times (Please put the airplane away...for the last time!) but the kids love it. They carry them to the playground and fly them until they won't fly anymore! Yesterday Peyton arrived extra early to make sure he would be able to attend.

We have been reading stories about gingerbread as well. Today we read Jan Brett's new book called Gingerbread Friends and for the past several days we have been enjoying classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel the by Michael Morpurgo. Later in math we began playing a game with dice called Roll a Gingerbread Man. I'll let you know more about that tomorrow.

If you think of it remember Ander's and his family during this time. I'm sure they would appreciate your thoughts and prayers. We also are missing Emma and her family. They surprised her with a trip to Disney World. We can't wait to hear all about it.