Whew....

Hello faithful followers! I have been not so faithful in my blogging. In all fairness I have a good excuse. The month of November (besides all the fury of the upcoming holiday season) was really tough because my son Luca got pneumonia. I have to admit, as a first time mommy to a toddler, this was pretty scary. The worst part was that we ended up in the ER at 10pm the day that my husband had just had surgery on his wrist. So, I spent the night in the ER with a very sick little boy and a daddy that was completely out of commission and on all kinds of pain killers. Not having any family around is really difficult in times like that. But thankfully our little guy is doing much better. We had to put a call in to grandma to come out and help take care of him (really, all of us since I ended up sick that same weekend) and we were very grateful that she was willing and able to make the trip. So, now that we are all almost back to normal, I can finally update this neglected blog!
I may just have to do it in a couple of posts since I have so much to add. I will start with November. We started the month with election fun and we even had a mock election in our classroom! We read three books: Duck for President, Gracie for President, and My Teacher for President. We then made campaign signs for who we thought should win, and held a mock election. I think the kids really enjoyed themselves, and learned a lot about how elections work. It only happens every 4 years, so I think it's an important thing to bring into the classroom. Here are some pictures of our campaign signs:

Now I am sad to say I have no clue which little cuties created these FABULOUS "Vote for Mrs. S" signs because these were done when my amazing substitute was filling in for me while I cared for sick little Luca. I took the pictures when I returned, but there were no names on them. So...if they are yours, I loved them!!! Oh, and guess who won the election...yep, me. I am so flattered.
We also got to try another special "Garden to Go" snack. This time it was some type of persimmon and the name is escaping me at the moment. The kids all tried them, and once again the majority of them liked it! So far, most of the special snacks have been a hit. Now I always try them with the kids (have to set a good example right?) but sometimes I have to try really hard not to make faces. I was not a fan of this snack...

Of course for Thanksgiving we had some fun activities to enjoy, and we did a lot of writing about what we were thankful for. Here are some of my favorites!

 Student #2 wrote the sweetest note to mom and dad. Love it!

This one is by student #20. How to cook a turkey. Pretty darn cute. In case you can't see it, it says "Take off the wrapper, take out the bones, cook it". Not sure about the whole bone removal, but hey, glad they knew to remove the wrapper!
We also did some special Thanksgiving "rotations" for the kids. We have what we call "rotations" every week in which the first grade teachers each teach a different subject such as social studies, art, science, tangrams, and some additional phonics and we rotate classrooms. During special holidays we plan holiday themed activities and students get to rotate classrooms and complete different fun projects. For Thanksgiving they got to do story telling bracelets, a cute "don't eat the turkey" craft, a pilgrim drawing activity, paint sample turkeys, and even got to make butter! I think they really had a good time. Sadly it was so hectic making story telling bracelets with 150 kids that I forgot to take pictures!!! Boooo:( I will do better during our holiday rotations next week, I promise!