Happy Holidays!

It's officially WINTER BREAK! Hooray!

Today we had our winter assembly, where my class performed a wonderful skit retelling the Indian legend of the Six Blind Men. I love this story, because it shows that everyone has different experiences and perspectives, and often each experience and perspective is valid and correct. A great lesson for everyone at this time of year!

This year, I really enjoyed sharing read aloud picture books to my group about different holidays and holiday traditions. Some of my favorites for this time of year include:

 

   

 

 

 

What I like about all of these stories is that they all speak to the importance of love, magic, friends and family. The kids in my class all enjoyed hearing the stories and talking about our different holiday and family traditions. 

Speaking of holiday traditions, my husband and I are celebrating our first Chanukah as a married couple! I really wanted to make it special for us, so I decided to get a little festive! I've been seeing a lot of cute DIY Chanukah decorations on Pinterest. I really like the mix of metallics and blues, especially on hanging banners. Being a teacher, I fortunately have access to lots of arts and crafts materials, so I got to work and made one of my own:

 

You will need:

- sturdy tag board

- paint (silver, gold, blue--or holiday colors of your liking!)

- glitter

- glue

- hole punch

- string

First, I cut out circles of tag-board and painted them silver, gold and blue.

Then, I decorated each circle with either a glittery design or one of the letters that spell out "Happy Chanukah", using plain old school glue. After the paint and glitter dried, I punched a couple of holes in each circle to thread the string through.

 

Begin threading the circles through the string (making sure that the string goes on the back of the circle). I did two banners, one for "Happy" and another for "Chanukah".

After you have strung your circles through, use hooks to hang up your beautiful banner! We put ours up behind our kitchen table, which is where we light our beautiful Menorah (given to us as a wedding gift) each night.

 

Of course, I also made Latkes (I used the boxed mix this time--hey, it was a school night! I don't have time to peel and grate all those potatoes!) Now that I am on break, I might just go ahead and try one of these recipes!

I hope everyone gets a chance to relax a little bit this holiday season! Peace and Love!