Farewell 2016

First grade closed 2016 by sharing family traditions around the winter holidays.  We enjoyed all the parent visitors who shared their traditions and books with our classes those last weeks.  In Kathy and Caroline's class we heard the story of Hanukkah and learned of the miracle of the oil burning for eight days with Joah's parents. 

 We had the opportunity to see and hear about the menorah, and see it glowing bright as the candles burned as Anna and her mom shared their traditions.  Playing dreidel was great fun! 
The students were tickled to watch the tops spin and thrilled if they got gimel!  We ate special Hanukkah cookies and discovered our new “official, favorite food,” latkes with applesauce and sour cream!!

We got to hear about German traditions for Christmas from Ryan and his mom that included using an advent calendar, decorating a Christmas tree, and hiding a pickle ornament. The students tried a traditional cookie they shared called pfeffernusse, and then decorated their own cookies.

Matthew's mom brought in a favorite Christmas story called, The Nativity, to read to the class. The students delighted in the illustrations.

In Susan and Janmarie's class, Ben's mom shared a story about Hanukkah and taught us how to play dreidel with chocalate gelt for all!


Xavier's dad shared what Christmas in Argentina is like. Since he grew up watching movies that connected snow and Christmas, the tradition is to make their own snow with cotton balls which they put on the tree. They also make their own mistletoe out of cranberries and green leaves. New Years Eve is a huge celebration with fireworks and in Buenos Aires on the last day of work before the holiday, they throw all of their old papers out the windows and into the streets. Many people make giant dolls to burn in the streets welcoming a new beginning! On January 6th, Little Christmas or Three Kings Day, they take down the tree. This is when they leave their shoes out when they go to bed and put out water and grass for the camels. The three wise men leave gifts in their shoes!

Hadley's mom shared their family tradition of making British minced pie. They made mini pies to share with our class, and we learned about this tradition. They were sweet and filled with fruit and nuts and sugar but back in the day were made with meat.

To enrich the traditions that we were hearing about, we read many wonderful books and engaged in many craft projects.  We made gingerbread people, 3-D Christmas trees and Hanukkah dreidels, poinsettia paintings and muhindi, ears of corn that represent each child in a family during Kwanzaa and colorful mkeka's, Kwanzaa mats.

We extend a warm thanks to all our parent visitors!  Getting to know our families in this very special way has been so rewarding for the students.  This provided another window into the richness and uniqueness of each member of the class through celebrations that we each share.  We continue to notice that we are all alike and we are all different and what a gift that is!