Crafts, food and laughter! What a great day! The crafts are turning out very nicely and it hasn’t taken as long as I thought it would which is probably a good thing as tomorrow will be busy. Students will be spending the morning practicing for the concert on Friday. They will also have gym and time to finish off any crafts they may not have been able to get to. They will also be doing their Secret Santa tomorrow. As a bit f a twist to this, I have the student pick names and then give the craft that turned out the best to that secret person. I think this makes a nice class bonding activity and also saves parents from having to purchase another gift.

We also had a great class party to end off the year. I know the students are all looking forward to Christmas and to having a break. They have all worked really hard and deserve some time off to relax, have fun and be with family.

There was a neat item on one of the morning shows this last weekend about Christmas. I thought that I would copy here for you as I think it speaks of the true meaning of Christmas; something that sometimes gets forgotten in the hustle and bustle of everything we have going on in our busy lives:

I keep seeing in the newspapers that it might not be a “good” Christmas because while visits to stores are up, purchases per visit are down very slightly. There is also some fear that it might not be a “good” holiday season because fears about the housing correction will scare shoppers into keeping their wallets zipped.

I’m fascinated by this, because I have looked through a Concordance of the Old and New Testaments and I do not find the word “shopping” even once. I’m not sure when the idea got to be dominant that a “good” Christmas was about total spending, but here respectfully are some alternative suggestions:

Maybe a good Christmas for this most blessed of nations would be when we as a nation and as communities made sure the homeless had a warm, safe place to sleep.

Maybe a good Christmas would not be about buying your kids the latest gizmo for listening to obscene lyrics, but about teaching them that if they are fortunate enough to have extra time or extra money, they can help out at the old age home or at the local animal shelter.

Maybe a good time would not be buying your parents sweaters they will never use, but taking a trip to see them and telling them how much you appreciate that they spent the heart of their lives taking care of you, feeding you, teaching you, putting a roof over your head, warming you with their love and concern.

Maybe the best time of all would be telling your husband or your wife that you would be lost without him or her and that you’re sorry for the selfish things you did that year, and you’ll be better next year.

Christmas and Hanukah presents rarely fit and rarely are to your taste. They sit in your closet and collect dust forever. But gifts in this special, sacred time of love and caring to your family, your friends, and your neighborhood – those are never forgotten. They bring peace of mind for years. And I seem to recall from my vanished youth that this is the holiday of the prince of peace, not the queen of diamonds.”

And as we finish up and get ready to leave for holidays, My wife and I, Gaston, Belle and Bob would like to wish you a wonderful, beautiful, joyous Christmas and the warmth of God’s gift to us to keep the cold dark winter away. Keep safe, laugh, see the joy of the season through your child’s eye and have a Merry Christmas.

Mr. H

There’s been some changes as you can see. They added some new templates to the site so I thought I would try out one of them. I think this has a little more of a kids feel to it. I hope you like it!

It was an exciting first day of crafts. The students did a wonderful job of their crafts and I think they are looking very nice. The students are working on 6 crafts: A gingerbread bear ornament, a snow person mitten, a jigsaw tree ornament, a musical centerpiece, a reindeer lightbulb and a woolly sheep ornament. The kids had a great time. A big thanks the parents who came out to help. They were a huge help to us and really made the morning go a lot easier.

We also took some time to woro on some Math. We are working on the nine times tables and learned some really interesting tricks for the nine times tables. For example, if you add up each of the multiples of nine, they add up to nine. 9×2 = 18; 1+8=9 and so on. The students thought that was really cool.

We have also been practicing very hard for the Christmas concert. The students are doing a great job and sound really good. It’s hard to believe that the concert is already two days away. I think you will really enjoy it. The song we are using as background is a real beautiful of Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. The choir I sing in sang it a couple of weekends ago at our concert here in Abbotsford. I have included it here so you can here it in it’s entirety as we only use a small piece of it in the concert. This one is sung by the Morman Tabernacle choir.

Infant

Have a great evening and if you have some time and would like to come and help with crafts fell free to drop in and join us. We will be doing crafts tomorrow from 9:00 to 10:15 and on Thurs we will be working from 1:00 to 2:45 or whenever we finish.

Well, it’s been a while since I have last posted something here. Thanks for being patient and I hope this blog has been useful for you.

I thought I would let you know of a new feature on our blog for the students and yourself as parents. Sometimes it is hard to find good websites that are school related and useful for students that connect with what they are learning. So I have added an item on the side of the blog where I will put good websites you can use with your child. Right now I have added a good brainstorming program we have used in class, some building sites and a children’s dictionary. I will be adding more as we go. Please note though that sites do change from time to time so please make sure that you are with your students as they use the internet. Children should not be using the internet without the supervision of a parent. While the internet has a huge repository of great information and interactive materials to creat wonderful learning experiences and enrichment for your child, there are also things that may be upsetting. While we should not ban the use of the internet, parent involvement and discussion is necessary. Having said that I hope these links will help you.

Since it’s the weekend, (and lot’s of time! to watch educational videos) I thought I would also include this really interesting one about how schools are killing creativity. It’s very funny and thought provoking at the same time. Enjoy your weekend!

Well, the class has been asking for pictures of Gaston. They also know how difficult it has been to sleep in on the weekends. Gaston likes to be fed at certain times and will meow loudly in the morning to let us know that it is time to be fed.

Well, I found this video that shows perfectly what would happen if Gaston was allowed to wake us up in the morning.

Well, here we are in December!!! Can you believe it? And it looked like December out there. It reminded me of growing up in Nova Scotia though the snow always stuck around. Not like here! I have to admit, though, that it is very hard to get used to the rain. I think that has been the hardest thing about moving here to B.C.; that and mosquitos in December! That’s just not right!

Things are busy in 3B. We have started out Science projects which the students are really enjoying. We have also been working on using maps in Social Studies. We have the room all decorated with lights and Christmas villages and the Christmas spirit is spreading in our room!

Our Christmas concert is coming up very quickly. We are also going on a field trip to the Chilliwack Museum for some craft making which the students are all looking forward to doing. Our class will also be doing some crafts in the last week before the Christmas holidays. I will be sending more information home about that as I will be needing some volunteers.

Have a great day and enjoy this wonderful season!

Mr. H