Dear Parents, I hope this week is going well for you! I feel like it is flying by quickly and we only have 4 days! Has everyone finished their Christmas shopping?? Sadly, I am not. 😀

Reading- This week we are reading a story about King George. He was a king who thought what he was doing was just fine and the colonists should be okay with his decisions. He couldn't understand why they were upset about paying taxes on tea and other things. After the Boston Tea Party occurred he decided he would just be more strict thinking that would make them change their minds. Did you know that he really suffered from a disease that caused mental illness? People back then didn't realize it and just thought he'd gone mad. In our grammar lessons we are working on the tenses of verbs-- present, past, and future. On Monday, they made two big lists of present and past tense verbs on the chalkboard... while doing that they hopefully noticed that most of the past tense verbs ended in -ed. Tomorrow morning (Thursday) they will test over their spelling words and a test over the story. When we return from break for those two days, we will do other things. I won't start a new story until the first full week in January. 

Math- They have been working on rounding decimals to the nearest whole number, tenth, and hundredth. The hardest concept for them to understand is that when the directions say round to the nearest tenth or hundredth...the whole number doesn't disappear, Many kids do this....8.718 rounded to the nearest hundredth is 0.02. They also have a hard time remembering that when we say the whole number that means the number in the ones column. I am not sure they totally understand that the decimal part is only part of a whole. 

Religion- This week they went to reconciliation with Father Adam. This was our first experience with him and this sacrament. Congrats to Jace on receiving the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation for the first time! In class we are doing activities around Advent. Yesterday they worked with a partner on writing an Advent Acrostic poem. They also had to compare the season of Advent to some other celebration of their choosing.

Thursday-- Christmas Caroling from 12:15-12:45 in the gym. 
They will need a sack lunch tomorrow. No drink. 
Wear your Ugly Christmas Sweater or Christmas Festive clothing and/or accessories
After the caroling, we will go back to our room to play games. I told the kids they can bring their favorite board game or card game from home. We will have a treat from Melanie for her birthday. 
I also told them the games along with their boots and snow pants would go home over break. It doesn't look like we will be having a white Christmas. 

I hope everyone has a great Christmas! I will be spending it in Waterloo at my brother's house. My sister Eva and her kids will join us from Pennsylvania and my sister and her girls from Waverly. It will be a full house! Merry Christmas!!!! 
God Bless,
Miss Surma