Friday, December 18, 2009: New Year's Celebration!

We had a New Year’s celebration today. There were 4 centers. Each one was 15 minutes long. We made gingerbread men, gingerbread houses, snowflakes, and suncatchers. Stephen thought it was fun making the gingerbread people because we got to eat them. Nancy liked making the gingerbread house because it was fun putting the candy decorations on. Lots of people were doing a lot of snacking as they worked! We got snacks and drinks. We all got champagne glasses filled with bubbly punch and also hot chocolate. Ms. Stern made a toast. Then cleaned up and counted down from 10. When we got to 1 we shouted “Happy New Year” because we pretended like it was midnight on January 1st, 2010. There were fireworks on the Smartboard. Ms. Stern was wearing bunny slippers. Almost everyone wore their pajamas, including Sarah and Arlo’s moms!

Adam’s mom came and she taught us about Hanukkah, the holiday that his family celebrates. She read us a book called Sammy Spider’s First Hanukkah. It was about a spider who wanted to spin a dreidel but “Spiders don’t spin dreidels, they spin webs!” Then we learned how to play the dreidel game. You spin a dreidel. Each side means something: gimel-get everything, shin-put everything in the pot, hay-get half, and nun-nothing happens. Everyone got a dreidel to keep. Next, we ate a snack of latkes with applesauce and a jelly doughnut (munchkin). Anthony D. liked the doughnut the most. Emma, Sarah, and Lauria liked the latkes the most. Before we went to gym, Adam’s mom gave us chocolate coins called gelt.

At the end of the day, people had a choice to read from their book bags or write. Some people also shopped for new books. While we were working, Ms. Stern gave us New Year’s gifts to use in 2010.

Be on the lookout for the Flat Stanleys, time capsules, and special gifts to be sent home next week!

Here’s a note from our class parents:

Dear Parents,

Thank you all so much for your enormous help during the Holiday Party today and for all of the party/craft donations. You each pitched in to make our party a big hit with the kids! It was so helpful to have you take over the stations and keep things moving along. Your help with setting up, crafting, handing out food and clean up is greatly appreciated!

Happy Holidays,

Lenora and Evan
Class Coordinators

I second that! Thank you so much for your contributions of materials and time. A great time was had by all! Have a terrific weekend and enjoy the snow!