Christmas Overload!

Is it just me, or has this year FLOWN BY?! It's hard to believe that we are already on Winter Break. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say, I miss those little rascals already. Our entire week was full of holiday spirit! From 8:00-3:00, we did all things Christmas. Anyone a little burnt out? ;) If you walked in our halls, I'm sure the displays made your smile widen from ear to ear.

My favorite activity of the week was "Santa's Stuck". We read the story, then the students came up with different ways they would save Santa from being stuck inside their chimney! The ideas are hilarious!

Here are some other festive activities your child completed this week!

*** While preparing my students for our class Christmas Party, news broke of the school shooting in Connecticut. It made me cherish the time I had with my students even more than I already do. I hugged them all a little tighter as they walked out of the classroom to go home that day. At this time, we'd like to take a second to honor and remember those lost in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. To the school and community of Newtown, you are not alone. Our hearts mourn for you and our positive thoughts are with you, now and forever. ***

We hope everyone has a wonderful break and spends loads of quality time with the ones they love! 

Happy Holidays!!! See you in 2013 :)

XOXO, Sutton Kindergarten Team

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch!

You can't celebrate the Christmas season without recognizing the king of mischief, Mr. Grinch! Of course, we don't celebrate the fact that he was cunning and mean... rather, we celebrate how he was able to strengthen his heart and make it grow 3 sizes bigger on Christmas Day by giving back to the Who's. How could we have our students give back to one another and make their own hearts grow? Our grade level team decided to bring that lesson into our classroom by making a class Grinch and decorating our Grinch with hearts full of random acts of kindness! The holiday season is all about love and making others feel loved. Check out how kind our little friends are (we are continuing giving hearts for acts of kindness up until the last day of break!)

We incorporated the Grinch into our entire day- from reading to math! Tons of grinchy fun was had by all. Our classes brainstormed ways to make the Grinch grin, solved Grinch math problems, read different stories, had a special Grinch punch for snack, and even were able to watch the movie that afternoon! Last, but not least.... THE GRINCH EVEN CAME TO VISIT US!!!!! What a great day to be in kindergarten! 

This writing piece simply warms my heart!
"To make the Grinch grin, I would give him a family."

We still have many more Christmas ideas up our sleeves, so stayed tuned!

Run! Run! As Fast As You Can!

Run! Run! As fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man! If you were a fly on the wall in our classroom, this is a line you would have heard MANY times throughout the last week. To celebrate the conclusion of November and the beginning of December, we had a Gingerbread Theme Week! Who knew there were so many things you could do with gingerbread? All four kindergarten classes spent all week discussing all things gingerbread, but each class put their own twist on the activities.

Of course for our read alouds, every story was about a gingerbread. Our classes explored the similarities and differences of each story. Many of the stories had the same refrain, but a few of them had different unexpected ones! A favorite was the refrain from "The Gingerbread Cowboy", which always began with "Giddy Up! Giddy Up!". Too cute! The students completed lots of story maps and text-to-text worksheets for comprehension. Mrs. Hoffman's group made an adorable jar and wrote about each story they read. They did an AMAZING job!!

The kiddos completed Gingerbread Glyphs this week as well. I love being able to learn different things about each child through glyphs :) Check out Mrs. Williams gigantic gingerbread!!!!

 Next week has potential to be the best week EVER. It is Miss DeWitt's personal favorite movie and the kindergarten teachers have lots of fun things up their sleeves! I'll give you a hint... he's mean and green. Can you guess the theme?!