Dear River Families,

This week in kindergarten we began an author study on Jan Brett! We compared Jan Brett’s illustrations to illustrations in other books and identified characteristics of her work. We watched a video about Jan Brett and a tutorial from Jan Brett on how she draws a hedgehog! We read many Jan Brett books including: “The Hat,” “The Mitten,” and “Gingerbread Friends.” We began working on holiday gifts for families and will continue working on this project over the next few weeks!

Centers this week included listening to a Jan Brett story, writing in our journals and making a Jan Brett mini-book. In our Jr. Great Books we read, “Bouki cuts wood,” and completed response writings and artwork.  We continued studying celebrations around the world and drew similarities and differences between all of the different celebrations around the world in December. For example, almost all the celebrations we discussed included light, the winter solstices, giving to others and family traditions. This led into our theme of the spirit of giving. We are trying to reinforce the idea of wants vs. needs and being thankful for all that we have.  Math this week continued activities with three dimensional shapes.

The children were very proud of their performance of Light and Love on Tuesday and on Friday we had a visit from Beth Epley! We have a special celebration for next Thursday for Santa Lucia. Please make sure your child is on time to school.  Treehouse is closed 12/24- 12/26 and 12/31 – 1/1. Academic break 12/27-12/28 and will continue 1/2 – 1/4 (following BVSD).  Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Ms. Lauren and Ms. Andrea