We have finally reached the Winter Solstice! This weekend will be our longest days of darkness before the hours of daylight start to come back to us, one minute at a time. 
We are so excited to send you off for your much deserved two week break. It is a time we look forward to as well. Time spent with loved ones, enjoying laughter and some much needed rest will surely help us start the 2025 year the right way….. Excited and energized!
We want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your gifts and cards. We always appreciate your kind words and thoughtfulness. 
We are so very grateful for our Division 7 students and families. Thank you all!
After the hustle and Bustle of last week, with all the Winter Concert and Reader’s Theatre preparations and shows, this week has been quite a switch. We spent a lot of time having fun with activities and puzzles centered around the themes of Winter and Christmas. We completed some challenging word searches and math puzzles to keep us engaged and thinking because it can be exceptionally hard to stay focused at such a fun and exciting time of year. 
To top it off, we celebrated many birthdays this week as well. We had Sepehr and Ayden celebrating birthday on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, because we had to say good-bye to Leo this week as he was moving back to Korea, we also celebrated his birthday early with him too. We must thank Leo and Sepehr’s mom’s for the lovely treats they shared
with us for the celebrations. Leo’s mom provided us all with a pizza lunch on Tuesday and Sepehr’s mom brought in a yummy cake. We are all sad to see Leo go but it was nice we got to send him off in such a yummy way!
On Monday, we watched the “City of Ember” movie to wrap up our Read Aloud. It was a very interesting movie. Many of you noticed how the movie moved much faster through the story compared to the book. Also, some things, like GIANT INSECTS, were added to the story which we agreed was probably just for special effect and excitement purposes.
It is always interesting to read a book and than watch a movie adaptation of it to compare the two. Has anyone in your family read a book and watched the movie version? You should chat with them about what they thought about the differences.
We met with our buddies two times this week. At the beginning of the week, we joined them in their classroom to help them design and draw a Christmas tree
. Once they finished, we helped them write a few sentences to describe the tree using some vocabulary given to us from Ms. Di Spirito. 
We saw them again on Friday, when they came to our classroom to have ‘Breakfast with Santa’ with us. I wonder what we will be doing with them in the new year? Do you have any suggestions of what you would like us to do with them?
Our “Secret Santa” gift exchange was a huge success! Everyone brought their gifts to school and we enjoyed watching everyone open their gifts one at a time on Thursday afternoon! Based on the responses when gifts were opened, you all did a great job shopping and every gift was a hit! You also did a great job keeping it a secret as many people were not able to guess who their “Secret Santa” was until it was revealed to them! Way to go!
This week was also exciting because you received your first progress report of the year. The first report of the year considers all your work from September to December. In our opinion, most of what we have been working on has been foundational. We have been working on being organized, responsible and attentive.
You have all come so far already! We love writing the reports because they remind us of all your hard work and success. Although we all have stretches and areas we are working on, many of you set goals for yourselves throughout this first term and, you reached those goals. We are excited for what is to come next term, are you?
Over the next two weeks, we wish you all a beautiful time with family and friends. As we discovered, there are so many different ways to celebrate at this time of year and whatever this season looks like for you and whatever traditions you hold, may they be another opportunity to create lasting memories of special times. Our hope for 2025 is that it starts well and turns into a beautiful year for you all!
See you all in January!
Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis