This month we are learning about peace and what we can do to be peacemakers. We picked Dr.Seuss as our peacemaker to study and will be reading many of his books. Dr. Seuss' books, aside from their wonderful rhythmical language, often carry a message about what people can do to be kinder to each other and to the world around them. Dr. Seuss We asked the Kindergartners what they thought peace meant and got many different responses: Peace signs quiet bird/dove silence happy relaxed not wild being good having fun

We also talked about how we could be a peacemaker at home and at school. We found out that we could:

care for one another give presents to everyone make a peace sign be quiet play with each other be nice make peace doves help friends love others when others are in trouble we could help them make peace necklaces share

We have a Peace Tree on our bulletin board now. When the children are "caught" being especially kind and helpful to one another they get a dove to put on the tree. We already have had many doves on the tree after only 2 days! The children are not allowed to report their own good deeds, but friends are encouraged to let us know when someone is doing something nice.

We have been working on decorating our classroom for the month of December and made a new paper quilt, decorated the cubby room with snowmen and our foyer doors with snowflakes. We made so many snowflakes that they are hanging off our ceiling now.\

The holidays are upon us and the children are very excited about Hanukkah and Christmas. We had a wonderful time on Friday learning about Hanukkah , lighting a menorah, singing some new songs and playing the dreidel game. We even got special Hanukkah cookies and gelt and our own dreidel to take home.

Thank you Dan and Stephanie!

Some of the children chose to make a snowman countdown picture. They are gluing on a cotton ball every day until winter vacation begins.

For sharing time this past week we asked the children what the ONE thing is that they want for Christmas or Hanukkah. Deciding on one thing was hard- but we will put the list up soon..just in case they haven't already mentioned what they might like.

As promised- the list! This includes the ONE thing that each child wants for Christmas or Hanukkah, but you'll have to stop by and check our class book to see who wants what. a big orange gorilla a fur real Santa to pick me up paper dolls Basilisk Lego a superman toy the dragon world set Harry Potter 2 a dinosaur set a car set( Turbo Jet City) hamtara a brat salon a spiky helmet set more train stuff TurboJet City ...

We have been reading more books and talking about peace and peacemakers in our classroom. We recently read about the Zax ( who wouldn't move to either side to let the other go by) and had a discussion about what it means to have good manners ... not to splatter your food not to be mean to people not to spill anything not to punch people in the nose say excuse me sit down quietly not interrupting no food fights try new food or say "no, thank you" use forks and spoons don't use bad words at the table or talk about gross stuff don't use swear words any time As you can see, good manners can mean many different things!

Some of our other projects have included candy canes made from beads and beautiful bead icicles. These were given as gifts to our peer readers, but many k-kids decided to make some extra ones to wear as earrings, hair ornaments or zipper pulls.

We have been busy adding doves to our peace tree, making special gifts for parents and friends (sorry, no pictures allowed!), making so much wrapping paper that it was practically hanging from the ceiling to dry and using our hands to make a peace sign for our bulletin board.

Our countdown til vacation chains are getting shorter and shorter!	Our peace tree is getting more doves every day!
We made a peace sign by tracing our hands.
	We made sooo much beautiful wrapping paper to wrap our gifts!

Our writing times have been very busy. We have written about how to be a peacemaker and about our favorite parts of James and the Giant Peach.   You'll have to stop by to see them all, but this is a small sample of each.

I am a peacemaker when I help mom and dad make things.		I am a peacemaker when I help people.
I like the part when the grasshopper played the violin.	The sharks ate the peach.	My favorite part of James and the Giant Peach is when he found the hole.
The peach rolled over Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker.		I liked when James found his friends.

We've also been doing lots of math. Check our math page for our December math jobs and all of our "foot math". We'll be adding a little bit of Gingerbread math at the end of the week.

One of our favorite projects this month has been interviewing each student to ask them what is special/nice about each of their peers. We read "The Important Book" by Margaret Wise Brown to get a feel for what might be important about each person. They came up with a wonderful list of the special things about their friends. We typed them up and hung the chains from doves on our ceiling. They look beautiful, but the best thing about them is all of the nice things about each child. We are sharing these lists during sharing time this week. Here are a few highlights... He always likes to draw pictures. She always cares about me. He's playful. She will let me marry her. She has a nice mom who can cook. He chooses me at sharing time. He likes knights. She plays with me a lot. He has a really good laugh. He's really good at being silly. She does everything. She's really funny. He helps me. He likes all the kids in the school. He's really fun and makes us laugh.

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