Community, PTO, and Holidays 2014

For any teacher or parent who has been involved in PTO projects you'll know all about the good, the bad, and the ugly. This holiday season we has some of each. The school fundraiser happen in conjunction with a thanksgiving banquet. I was so pleased with how our PK cut paper mural turned out. I'll put that in the good category.

The Christmas play and party followed closely behind the Thanksgiving party, which I'll put in the ugly category. The kids all did wonderful work, but the level of exhaustion was so obvious. My dearest wish and big piece of advice is to space out big celebration events for the sanity of both kids and parents.

But as a smart person I know often says "done is good." And so it is. Happy holiday season to all, and to all (teachers) a nice rest!

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S Snake

Snakes are a regular occurrence here in the jungle. We see snakes slither across our outdoor hallway with some frequency, so the kiddos have a personal connection to them. This was reflected in lots of patterns, smiles, and familiarity.

Bulletin Board: Room on the Broom

This year for Halloween I had both families who were avid celebrators of the holiday, and those who did not celebrate it at all. To find a nice compromise we did a book study of "Room on the Broom" written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Sheffler. I wrapped the idea around friendship and kindness rather than Halloween and everyone was happy. To make the bulletin board I used the fairy tale printable boarder from Sparkle Box UK, http://resources.sparklebox.me.uk/7000-8000/sb7597.pdf Then I layered construction paper to make the broom and took pictures of the students, teacher, and aides all sitting sideways on a chair against a blank background. The children asked to add in the animals so I simply copied their pictures from our copy of the book. There are so many wonderful resources for this story and I can't speak more highly of the short film that was made in 2012, it is wonderful!

O Octopus

The kiddos in my class are used to seeing octopus tentacles being grilled on skewers in the market stalls, but making a crafty one wasn't too much of a stretch! I'm happy to report that as a class that data for letter recognition and phonetic sounds has jumped up greatly since I launched the letter collages.

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