Russian Stars

Today we read Uncle Vova's Tree written by Patricia Polacco.  This is the story of a young girl and her family who visits her Uncle Vladimir and Aunt Svetlana every year to celebrate Christmas in the Russian tradition.  One of their favorite family customs is to decorate the evergreen in the front yard with popcorn and cranberries strings and paper stars.  Then we made our very own paper stars!  Check out the beautiful stars that will soon be coming home for you to display!

St. Nicholas Day!

December 6th is St. Nicholas Day in many European countries. The tradition seems to have begun in the Netherlands and Belgium where boys and girls put shoes out on the windowsill and hope to find goodies and gifts there in the morning. The modern day Santa Claus is derived from this early "Sinterklaas". Making wooden shoes seemed like a daunting task for first graders, so instead they made paper shoes which they set out for Sinterklaas in the hopes that he'd bring these American children a special treat. I left him a special message assuring him that these lovely American children would not ask for treats again next year, but they'd appreciate a little something this one time! When they arrived the morning of the 6th they were somewhat surprised to find clementines and a few candy treats!

Flynn Theater Companion Workshop

We had the pleasure of working with a Flynn Theater residence teacher this week! The plan was to do this work prior to our field trip to see The Teacher of the Black Lagoon, but the Flynn resident teacher was sick. Better late then never and it was a really fun experience! We all participated in the hour-long workshop where creativity was the word of the day. As you'll see in the pictures, the children were asked to express themselves through movement! I love their facial expressions!