Well, I made it home! Anyone watching me carry all your gifts home with me would have had a good laugh. Actually, the pile of gifts in the corner was so big that I couldn't reach the phone without freefalling toward the wall. Our phone helper had to leap into the centre of everything!! I am truly overwhelmed by your generosity. Chistmas is not about the gifts, I know, but I take it this means you like me as a teacher, and that means a lot. Thank you for all the amazing supplies for our classroom, the money to buy books and the many treats for me. I'm not sure how you knew what my favourite things are, but you somehow chose everything that I like and nothing that I don't. It will take me a while, but I will eat and drink every single thing and love every minute of it! Thank you also for the many donations to Sick Kids. From our conversation yesterday, it appears that many of our lives have been touched by this hospital. For my part, I hope the children like the books I chose. I did my best to select a book for everyone at their appropriate level so that they can actually try to read it.
We had a very festive day yesterday beginning with the carol sing-a-long in the gym.
After recess, we did some festive symmetry art by painting half a picture and then folding to create the other half. Some of our ideas of symmetrical winter things included snowmen, Christmas trees, presents and houses.
After lunch we had the Reindeer vs. the Snowmen for the Holiday Olympics. The teams completed 5 silly challenges (yes, including indoor skiing) to earn stars, and in the end the Snowmen won by 1 star. Everyone worked on being a good sport and both teams received cookies for their participation. Ask your reindeer or snowman what the 5 activities were!
After last recess we opened presents and had one last story before the massive packing job. I stressed the idea of taking extra books and I saw that our yellow drawer was pretty well empty, so I hope everyone has what they need to keep reading over the holiday. Please try to make sure all our books come back on January 5th so that we can keep sharing.
I wish you a very restful and family-filled break.
Happy everything!
Tamara