Merry Christmas

This holiday season is very different for me.  I am away from family and friends.  New friends are with their families either here or back in America.  I am truly blessed to be where I am this year, in Thailand with my hubby.  But the holidays are hard to be away.  For those of you enjoying family time, please treasure it.  It is such a blessing and easily taken for granted time.  I know that you all do, but just wanted to remind you of how special family time and this time of year are.  No matter where I am, it is still my favorite time of year, just now for different reasons!

I pray that you are happy and healthy and joyful this holiday season.  Merry Christmas!!

p.s. I love the snow effect because surprisingly I AM missing the snow!

Holiday spirit and craftivities

Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!!

I am officially on break and have been since Thursday!! We have two full weeks off, which is apparently more than some schools :))  Hubby and I are going to enjoy every minute of it.

The last week of school was crazy but I will post more on that later.  For now holiday activities.

I tried to be a little crafty this holiday season.  We dont have much decorations other than a tree, but I did try one thing.  I put tape on cardstock.  Painted over it.  Glitterized it a little :)  Only sad thing is I havent hung it up anywhere!

  

At school we were a little crafty too!! We made strings of lights with colored paper and string.  Here is mine: We wrote one letter per light to spell out our names.....

On the back we wrote adjectives about the person whose name was written on the lights.  

Here are half of the kids ones hanging up in the class.  It was really fun and educational :)

We also made button ornaments.  Mine is the one on the left.... I was going for a random look.  I was then showed up by a kid who made the one on the right... very festive!

Another teacher donated this tree to us, so we decorated it with our button wreaths.  Some girls made the snowflakes for me so I put them on the tree too!  

What kinds of crafts did you do this holiday season?  I hope you all are enjoying time off and finding time to relax a little.  May the holidays be just as good for you wherever you may find yourselves this year!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Even from the other side of the globe, our thoughts and prayers are with those in need this week and Christmas season.  

**Thank you to Michelle @ 3amteacher for designing the heart for this post and Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for sharing it with us.  

12-12-12

Today is 12-12-12!!!!!!!!!! It is so cool.  The kids had no idea.  I asked them what was special about today.  I got a few "Its your birthday!". Sadly it is not.  I got a "Its Christmas!" (Apparently Christmas is NOT a big deal here.....).  Finally, someone said its December 12th, but they did not get it.

I began to write it down and a few of them realized.  Its 12-12-12!!  We talked about how this does not happen at all.... but then I got, it happened last year with 11-11-11.  Then and the year before that with 10-10-10.  Then someone said, it happened the month I was born too 2-2-02.  I had a revelation.

This has happened EVERY year of my 4th graders little lives.  It was shocking to me that they were spoiled in this way!

So then we had a long discussion about how rare this is. And that it will not happen again for 100 years (or 99 if you consider 11-11-2111, I was corrected ;] )

Then we wrote in our journals about what we think the world will be like in 100 years.  I was surprised that most of them struggled to think creatively about this.  I then prodded them by making silly suggestions.  The one they liked the most was "maybe we wont be wearing any clothes **really, really, really long pause** because we will be wearing space suits".  They wore shocked I would say such a thing!

Finally, at the end of the day I passed out little candy bags.  Each small bag had 12 M&Ms, 12 Reece's Pieces, 12 Mentos.  But I did not tell them 'what' was in the bag, that was their homework. I said that it contained something to do with 12-12-12.  They had to tell me what.  Some kids had NOOOOO idea how to figure it out.  Some said they would look it up on the internet...oh boy...  Some got it right away.   We will see what responses we get tomorrow.

What did/are you doing for 12-12-12??

p.s. sorry I haven't blogged in awhile.  We had some days off because of Thai holidays which were wonderful.  I got some Christmas shopping done and needed some time away from the internets.  Cant wait to show you my Christmas crafts though!

Currently

I can NOT believe it is December already.  But in honor of it is the new Currently from Farley.

Keeping up with shows makes my heart happy after long days at work!  Bones and Revenge are my current favorites!

I love that is December and things are becoming Christmasy!! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! It is so weird to be in a foreign land during this time but I am excited to experience new things.  I went to the market yesterday and found this teeny tiny watch shop turned Christmas with real stuff from AMERICA!! I was stoked. I got myself a 3ft tree, some real lights that do not burn up as soon as they are plugged in and some decorations................ Only problem is I have only put 1 strand of lights (which is clearly not enough) and 2 ornaments on.  It is need of some help!

Can you see the one ornament that is on it!?!?!

Shopping! Who doesnt love shopping during Christmas.  The sales here are nothing compared but still I want to shop!  Plus, I need new dress pants for school.  Not having a dryer means I cant shrink my pants.  MAJOR problem.  Plus I have been losing weight - yippeeeeeee! - but again means problems with the pants!  ugh.  I will figure something out eventually.  

RAK - I LOVE this.  Random acts of kindness are my favorite things.  This week I have been planning on writing some notes of encouragement to my friends and family. I would love to include some goodies.  

Props Farley for this section.  I can not wait to see what others are planning on doing!

This week I am planning on starting a contest with my class.  We have two doors to our room. The boys get and the girls get the other.  Their goal is to create the best Christmas tree they can out of paper and other available materials.  We will also be discussing shapes during this time so we can try to include as many of our shapes as possible!  Then, the school is going to vote for the best one.  In order to vote, each person has to list an adjective describing the tree.  The girls especially seemed very into this but I think the guys will come around to it.  It will also be good bonding for my class.... because they NEED some mega bonding time!

What fun Christmas/holiday ideas are you doing in your classroom?? What crafts are you doing?