Wildlife Expert Visit

Mr. Cliff, a former Fish and Wildlife agent, came in to talk to all of third grade about different plants and animals in the wetlands, as well as their adaptations.  The students LOVED the presentation!

After his presentation, students got the chance to touch and explore animal wings, beaks, skulls, and more!

At the very end, Mr. Cliff told us a story about a backpacking trip that ended when a bear licked his face and woke him up!  How exciting!

We can't wait to take all this information with us on our rescheduled Wetlands field trip in January!

Happy Skies and P.E.!

I have been LOVING the winter skies recently!

One of the California state standards is 200 minutes of instructional P.E. time every two weeks, so we have been taking advantage of the gorgeous mornings to get our wiggles and giggles out.  Here we are playing Builders and Bulldozers as well as Monkey in the Middle.

Holidays Around the World, part 2

The next country students visited was Germany, in Mrs. Reeves' class.  There they say "Froliche Weinachten!" for Merry Christmas.  Did you know that gingerbread and Christmas trees are two traditions that started in Germany?

In her class, students got to eat gingerbread (yum!) and decorate their own (paper) gingerbread men.

They also got to use pine tree branches to make tiny Christmas trees, and then decorate them!

Another German tradition is leaving shoes out for Santa to fill (with candy if kids are good and sticks if kids are naughty).  The next morning, all the kids in our class had somehow received candy!

The last class we visited in our classroom was Australia.  Because it's on the other end of the world, Christmas in Australia is sunny and warm!  We had fun learning about how Santa surfs into Australia and is pulled by kangaroos and how they say "Happy Christmas!"

One of the fun traditions in Australia is a lucky gold nugget--whoever finds it in their pudding will have good luck for the year.  We ate regular chocolate and vanilla pudding, and whoever had a gold coin at the bottom of their cup was the lucky one!

Also in Australia, they sing carols by candlelight--so we did too!

Mmm, ginger beer (like root beer) and pudding!  Loving some new Australian foods

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of Israel, the last country students visited in Mrs. Reeves' classroom.  There they learned about Hanukkah, menorahs, and dreidels, and ate potato latkes!

Here we are getting ready for our performance of the skits representing all the countries at the Holiday Sing!

Holidays Around the World, part 1

I hope you all are enjoying your winter break!  Having a little extra time on my hands, I thought I'd catch up the blog.  We took a trip around the world with Mrs. Reeves' class to learn about how holidays are celebrated in six different countries.  Students had to fill out passport applications to the 't' before receiving passports and boarding passes and starting their adventures!

Students also made their own suitcases to hold their work and decorated them with stickers!

The first country we visited was Italy, where they say "Buon Natale!" for Merry Christmas.

We sampled Panettone, a delicious fruitcake/spongecake

...and then we wrote our Christmas promises to our parents and folded them like napkins, in Italian tradition.

In Mrs. Reeves' class, students first visited Mexico, where they learned about the tradition of Las Posadas and the traditional way to make hot chocolate.  Then students got to sample Mexican hot chocolate and warm tortillas with butter and cinnamon-sugar!  In Mexico, they say, "Feliz Navidad!"

Also in Mexico, students made poinsettia crafts!

Mmm, these cinnamon rolls seemed just perfect for a trip to...

Sweden, which was our second stop in our classroom. "God Jul!" is Merry Christmas in Swedish.  We learned about St. Lucia's Day, which celebrates a girl long ago who gave food and gifts to the needy. 

Turns out, we had a perfect St. Lucia Day girl in our midst!

The St. Lucia girl serves coffee and sweet rolls to the whole family on December 13th.  We got to try cinnamon rolls and coffee (decaf, with lots of creamer) in that tradition!

 After our treat, we got to make St. Lucia's Day crowns!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Day is a week away, but we had Thanksgiving in our class yesterday!  Thank you for all the wonderful donations of food, and thank you to all the parents who were additionally able to set up/decorate, serve food, pour drinks, and clean up! :)  We all had so much fun and it was a wonderful start to my favorite holiday!