As you all now know, we are nearing the end of the Fall season. Soon, the Winter Solstice will arrive and so will the shortest day! December 21 is when Winter arrives here in BC and, as it so happens, that will be your first day of Winter Break! In our study of the seasons, we are finishing up our visual note taking
work by combining all we learned with Ms. Cummings about the Seasonal Round, with all our investigations about the seasons here in BC.
We learned a lot about how the rotation of the earth around the sun affects all living things, big and small. From the earliest times, humans, plants, and animals have had to adjust their behaviours to survive and thrive through all the changes each season brings. Are you and your family ready for winter?
Here at school, we prepare for the season in many ways. We collected warm socks, hats and mittens for those in the community who need our help to stay warm. In Music class, you are also preparing and practicing a song for our school’s Winter Concert. Not only that, we have been making ornaments for our class
Christmas Tree and we even made Christmas Tree Ornaments with our buddies to celebrate the season. You also received your completed glass ornaments and hopefully found a place of honour for them in your homes. They were gorgeous! 
In Writer’s Workshop, we were given gifts from Great Aunt Gert so we are working on writing her Thank you notes as well. Did you tell your parents what Great Aunt Gert got you? We are sure they would love to hear about some of the crazy gifts she gave you and your classmates.
Before Winter Break, we are going to be wrapping up our second read aloud novel. In the next week, we should be finishing “The City of Ember”. That means we will be able to watch the movie version as well. It will be very interesting to compare the novel to the movie, don’t you agree? We have our next read aloud picked out and ready to go but, you will have to wait for the New Year to find out what it is!
On Thursday we were treated to a wonderful lesson by Mrs. Dionne ( from our ELL teaching team) as she shared how Christmas is celebrated in Mexico! 
We learned that there are two big celebrations in Mexico at this time of year: Las Posadas and Dia de los Reyes Magos. Las Posadas takes place over 9 days starting on December 16 right through to December 24th. This 9 day celebration is a reminder of the long journey Mary and Joseph made and their search for a place to stay before Jesus was born. Dia de los Reyes Magos ( Day of the Three Kings) takes place on January 6th. This is the day that Mexican children receive gifts and is also the final day of the Christmas celebrations. Mrs. Dionne baked us the traditional sweet bread 
( Rosca de Reyes) to finish off her lesson! It was delicious! Do you remember what is special about that bread? What is hidden in it? What happens when someone finds the hidden item?
In Math we had some fun with meters! We did some conversion practice to become familiar with how to write/ record centimeters into meters . 
Example: 345cm = 3 meters and 45 centimeters = 3.45 meters. Then, in small groups we did some measuring around the classroom, in the hallways of the school, and outside. We didn’t finish this yet, but, it was good practice learning how to use the meter stick as a tool and to measure accurately using both centimeters and meters.
Thanks everyone for getting your Secret Santa wish lists back to school so quickly. We were able to do our draw on Friday and everyone who is participating has a person to shop for. Remember, our budget is between $12-$15 . Please bring your gifts ( wrapped and labelled with who the gift is FOR. ) to school on Monday Dec. 16 or Tuesday Dec 17th. Our Secret Santa exchange will take place on the 19th or 20th. That will still be decided as we see how our schedule goes.
Blog Response…
Ask your family members about how they prepare for winter. List at least 5 ways your family prepares themselves and your homes for the coming of the season……