Season's Greetings

I hope this blog-post has found you safe and warm; I thank you for not giving up on us as it has been many weeks since I have sat down at the computer. Tomorrow is the winter solstice, therefore I suppose this is the last day of autumn. Hard to believe, as here on the prairie people, plants, and animals have been prepared for winter's coming for weeks! As the weather turned frigid, we stayed warm and filled our room and hearts with light. Take a look...

Tom counts his change at the Brant Argyle Store Grand Opening. Mary (grade 8) and her purchases.

A busy grand opening!

Fort Strategy 

December Light

Kix in the fort

The winter, recess-time shelters

Some of us like to slide down the hill

Snow Covered Gardens (Good thing we picked the tomatoes!)

The Gingerbread Man in Three Acts

Nic, Myles and Matt taking a break

A Beautiful Sight

Sketching Snowmen

I will take a moment to share this beautiful winter story we read together this month as it is certainly one of my favourites. The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is a dreamlike, wordless story that drew us all in. Briggs tells the story of a boy who builds a snowman one winter day. He is soon woken in the night and invited to have all sorts of adventures with the snowman. We were inspired by the soft pencil sketches in this book and decided to create our own.

Bailey's Snowman

Here we are at the post office mailing our letters to Santa!

Post Christmas Concert Pyjama Day

We were ALL feeling cozy that day.

Making gifts for the birds.

A bird feeder: Vegetable shortening and seeds. Thanks to Mrs Schot for the seeds!

So Gooey! 

Do you see the Feeder? They were suddenly half gone in a couple of days!

Click here to find information about birding in Manitoba!

Last week, this was at the beginning of our daily walk.... 

....and this was at the end.  Multi-Age at its finest.

K-8 Gingerbread Math Extravaganza: The K-3 General Store was open for business again. This time REAL candy!

Bungalow

Multi-Level 

Cinnamon Ornaments: Cinnamon, Applesauce, and GLUE!

Ornaments ready to dry

Mr Gillies helps a little one clean her hands.

clay owls: our Christmas offerings this year

Skating Day! What a prairie scene!

Caleb on the ice!

Very serious story writing happening here. 

Our Family Traditions during the Holidays

And lastly, HAPPY HOLIDAYS from this finished owl

Wishing all a love-filled holiday and a joyous beginning to the new year!

See you January 6th!

The Snow has Arrived...

...but has the Tomten?

Now that the snow has fallen, we are keeping a watchful eye for fresh Tomten tracks. A Tomten is quite like a gnome, or an elf, but he lives on only on farms and in rural countrysides. The Tomten is a kind being that helps the animals of the farm and watches over the children. The Tomten especially likes animals and children because they can speak the Tomten language.

“If they would only wake up, then I could talk to them in Tomten language, a silent little language children can understand.  But children sleep at night.”

Tomten tracks or Bailey and Cassie tracks?

We also continued with our exploration of how Living Things Prepare for Winter. We really narrowed it down to three things living things will do in a climate such as ours:

migrate! hibernate! or adapt!

Which would you choose if you could?

Another extreemly exciting project happening in our room right now is the Brant Argyle Store. Myles, Cassie, Nic, and Matt have been busy designing, setting up, pricing items, and making flyers for the first ever (in school) Brant Argyle Store!

the staff schedule

Thanks to last month's veggie fundraiser and a lot of help from Nic's very generous and handy parents, our play area went from this:

To this:

On Monday, we will have our GRAND OPENING. All students will be invited to tour and shop the store. Fresh cookies made by K-3 will be served and the store will be officially open for all to enjoy during playtime! All families are of course welcome to join us and celebrate our new space for imagination.

Somewhere Today

After Reading Somewhere Today: A Book of Peace we decided to make our own book of peace.We showed some of the simple ways in which we can all make the world a better place.