Sinterklaas Visits HCS!

As we learn about holidays around the world, we have been studying the map!  On Friday we "traveled" to Europe to learn about Dutch Christmas traditions and their version of Santa Claus called Sinterklaas.  In the Netherlands, children put out their shoes on December 5th for Sinterklaas to fill with treats.  Sinterklaas arrives on horseback and leaves treats for all the "good" boys and girls.  Children leave hay and carrots for his horse.  Each child in our class made a traditional Dutch "wooden" shoe (made of paper, of course!) and left it out on Friday to see if Sinterklaas would leave treats!  On Monday they arrived to a clementine and a few candy treats.  

The beautiful artwork on the shoes must have impressed Sinterklaas!  Here are some sample shoes:

Saying Goodbye to Miss Hamner!

Today we said goodbye to Miss Hamner!  It was really hard to keep a secret from Miss Hamner, but your kids did a really good job!  On Monday she had to go to UVM in the afternoon for class and while she was gone the kids all made her cards.  They were beautiful!  They drew, colored and wrote their hearts inside those cards!  We gave her an LL Bean bag teacher bag with her name on one side and all of our names on the other!  We put a big pile of books inside and the kids wrapped it up!  Our last day with Miss Hamner was a normal day until finally...FINALLY...it was time to celebrate Miss Hamner!  We gathered on the rug and gave her our present.

Then Miss Hamner surprised all of us with a gift bag of treats!  You've seen them by now and know how sweet the ornaments are that she made for each of us.  On the back of the ornament it says, "2015 Miss Hamner" and I overheard a very excited voice say, "Look!  Miss Hamner gave us her number!"  (Someone thought she was handing out her phone number!!!)

And then it was time to go home...I thought there might be tears (MINE anyway!) when it was time to say goodbye one last time, but Miss Hamner got lots of hugs and the kids went home happy to have known  her!  

She will be missed by us all!  She was calm and kind and encouraging and will be a wonderful teacher very soon!  The kids loved her and so did I! 

Good luck, Miss Hamner!

Feliz Navidad!

Today we began a unit that teaches geography using Holidays celebrated this time of year around the world!  The first stop was Mexico!  We read both The Legend of the Poinsettia and Night of Las Posadas  by Tomi dePaola.  A Mexican Christmas is very religious, but the poinsettia is a Mexican weed that was thought to be beautiful and brought to the U.S. by an Ambassador in the early 1800s and the plant has been incorporated into the American Christmas tradition.  This afternoon your child made a poinsettia ornament.  (That was their idea!  I had planned for the project to be wall art, but they wanted them to be ornaments!)  Because they had learned several Spanish words while reading the Mexican legend, they knew that Christmas is "Navidad" in Spanish.  So, of course we listened to "Feliz Navidad' while working!  Here are your busy little singers!