Week 15

Happy holidays everyone! We have had a very busy week here at school with visitors and special activies nearly every day! On Monday, we were treated to a nativity play by our friends from Bishop Kearney Highschool. Students got to hear the famous Christmas story told by students dressed as animals, and even had the chance to mingle and meet them when the show was over! We would like to thank all of our friends from Bishop Keaney for their wonderful annual performance here at Holy Childhood. It gets better with every year!

Wednesday, our afternoon was spent participating in a sing-along caroling event held in the school gymnasium. Students sang Christmas carols (and one Hanukkah tune) with the school's teachers and got into the holiday spirit.

Thursday the Dansville Jazz Band came to play for us, and even gave students the opportunity to play with the band! Students from Mrs. P.'s class were invited to go up on stage and play instruments alongside members of the band, giving them the chance to showcase some of the skills and rhythms they have learned in music class this year. The latter half of the day was spent by our other guests, the RH Singers, who treated us to an afternoon of song and Christmas cheer. We would like to extend our gratitude to both the Dansville Jazz Band and the RH Singers for their wonderful visits and generosity. Happy holidays to you all!

And of course, Friday was dedicated to the School of the Holy Childhood's annual Christmas party, a day-long event filled with music, food and fun! Students from each classroom met around the school circle to greet a parade of firefighters, as well as Santa, Mrs. Claus and Rudolph! Everyone then moved to the cafeteria to receive gifts from Santa, and were treated to lunch with the Henrietta Fire Department's firefighters.

Happy holidays everyone! See you next year!



Weeks 13 and 14

The past two weeks Mrs. P.'s class continued learning about this month's country and sport, Russia and gymnastics, by adding five new sight words to our ever-growing list: Russia, gymnastics, gymnast, stretch and balance. Since the start of the year, students have added thirty sight words to their vocabulary, and have done a fantastic job both recognizing and identifying what they mean. Teachers have been amazed by the progress our classroom Olympians have made, and encourage everyone to keep up the good work!

In physical education students continued their gymnastics unit, getting the opportunity to try out the very exercises they have been learning in the classroom in the gym! This week students had another try at the balance beam, and even got to try jumping from the vault on to a mat! In health class we began discussing the importance of feelings. We now know how to acknowledge them in ourselves and be mindful of them in others.

In SPOT group, Mrs. P.'s class made booklets about Russia, learning about various aspects of Russian culture to compare and contrast it with our own. We learned that Russian children, unlike ourselves, win medals after the 9th grade which advance them to either secondary or vocational schools. We also learned that instead of using the name "Santa," Russian children call Santa Clause "Father Frost." However, we also learned that Russian children have a lot in common with us. They attend school at the same time we do, enjoy the same types of activities and games, and go through similar seasons. To learn more, check out the website we looked at in SPOT group:

http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212302/russia.html

In art class students completed projects we've been working on for our families for the holiday. We can't give you TOO much information, but can tell you to look forward to a special surprise that's been made by the students themselves!

Next week we begin our countdown to the holiday! With only one week of school remaining, we hope that everyone continues to keep up the hard work before a much deserved vacation. Please remember to wear your holiday colors to school as we have plenty of fun planned for the week ahead. Happy holidays everyone!

Roc the Day

Thursday December 8 is Roc the Day, Rochester's first community-wide day of giving to benefit the city's more than 600 not-for-profit organizations. The School of the Holy Childhood is asking for your donations on this day to help us continue to provide quality education, training and services to children and adults with developmental disabilities. Here is how YOU can do your part:

1. Go to http://www.roctheday.org/
2. Choose School of the Holy Childhood
3. Give with a simple, one-time online donation

Please help us out on this great day of giving! The school will receive an additional $1300 grant if we reach 50 donors, so lets Roc the Day, Holy Childhood!

Week 12

At the close of Week 12, we find ourselves in the festive month of December! Tis' the season for holiday sharing, gift giving and for those of us here at Holy Childhood, the Annual Holiday Party hosted by the Henrietta Fire Department on Friday, December 23, 2011. That Friday the entire school will be treated to lunch from the town's firefighters and gifts from Santa. Though we would love to have families and friends here at school to help us celebrate, we are unable to invite visitors due to the number of guests we will already have present and wish all of you a happy holiday at home!

With the start of a new month, Mrs. P.'s class was busy wrapping up its lessons on Canada. In SPOT group this week, students prepared waffles with Canadian maple syrup, getting a taste of what our Northern neighbors enjoy year-round. Students had the opportunity to work as a team to measure and combine ingredients, resulting in a very tasty reward! Stay tuned to see what country, sport and athlete Mrs. P.'s class will learn about this month!

Mrs. P.'s class also began a new unit in Physical Education: gymnastics! This week our classroom Olympians learned about the balance beam, and each student got the chance to walk on one with teacher assistance.

In art class, students began decorating holiday ornaments for both school and home. Students worked with various different materials- paint, tissue paper, and crayons- to create what are turning out to be beautiful hand-crafted ornaments!

Again, we wish you a happy holiday season, and look forward to a few weeks of hard work before a much deserved vacation! Please be reminded that the School of the Holy Childhood will be closed for the holidays beginning Monday, December 26, 2011 and will reopen on Monday, January 2, 2012.

Week 11

Mrs P.'s class would like to thank everyone for participating in this year's wonderful Turkey Trot! The feast was fantastic and the dance was hopping, and we are all looking forward to a much deserved vacation! Happy Thanksgiving to our families and friends at home! See you next week!

Week 10

What a wonderful week we've had here in Mrs. P.'s class! Students have been mastering their sight words while learning about Canada and archery. This week students were introduced to Jason Lyon, an archer from Winnipeg Manitoba who will be competing in London's 2012 Olympics. Mrs. P.'s class also had the opportunity to see the real equipment archer's use to practice their sport, as our classroom has it's own archer, Mrs. P. herself!

In music class, students had a chance to hear the Canadian national anthem and watch a video of a traditional Quebecois dance that is danced sitting down in a chair! In our next meeting, we will learn a dance of our own to get a feel for how our Canadian neighbors like to move! Students also learned a social greeting song, which we sang to our fellow classmates using a microphone.

This week Mrs. P.'s class began their New York State Alternate Assessments, which will continue up until the Christmas holiday. Students are encouraged to do their best work and try their hardest. Keep up the great work kids!

Thank you for contributing jars of gravy for next week's Thanksgiving feast. We are all looking forward to a holiday meal together, and wish everyone at home a happy Thanksgiving!

Week 9

In our second week into November, Mrs. P.'s class has been hard at work as always! Students now have 25 sight words they are working on, and as our list of words grows longer our students' progress becomes all the more pronounced! This week students made flashcards for their newest sight words, so please look for them and practice them at home!

In woodworking this week, students finished constructing wooden oars! Students started these projects last month when Mrs. P.'s class was discussing rowing. Not only are these oars a reflection of the great hard work our students do, but a great way to remember the things we learn about here at school!

Next Tuesday, November 15, will be the school's picture retake day. If you are unsatisfied with your child's picture please prepare them for Tuesday's shoot. The first set of proofs must be returned with the retake request sheet in order for retakes to be taken.

The School of Holy Childhood has also been preparing for it's annual Thanksgiving Feast, to be held on Tuesday, November 22. Those preparing the food have asked that all classrooms contribute to the meal, and each of Mrs. P.'s students has been asked to bring in a jar of turkey gravy by next Wednesday, November 16. Our class will be preparing mini corn muffins the week of the feast. Unfortunately due to the fact that both staff and students participate in the Thanksgiving feast, the school is unable to invite families to join in the day's festivities. We hope everyone has a happy holiday and relaxing vacation at home!

Mrs. P. would also like to report what great work her students have done with their classroom job of recycling. Students collect, count, and dispose of empty Capri Sun containers and Frito Lay chip bags in an effort to earn money for our school. An added bonus of the classroom job is that students work together and get a sneak peek at what it's like to have a job. Great job everyone!

Week 8

What an exciting week we have had here in Mrs. P.'s class! We kicked off our week with Holy Childhood's annual Spooktacular, an afternoon of Halloween games, activities, and fun! Our classroom's witches, cheerleaders, clowns and superheroes played candy-corn BINGO with their sight words, danced the Monster Mash, and watched the school's own feature film, "School of Terror." We hope everyone had as much fun at home on Halloween as we did here!

As you all may know, our classroom theme here in Mrs. P.'s class is "The Road to the Olympics," and over the duration of each new month our students learn about a new country and sport. In November we will be learning about Canada and archery. This week students learned five new sight words related to these two topics: Canada, medal, archery, bow, and arrow.

But before we completed our month discussing Germany and rowing, Mrs. P.'s class had the opportunity to visit the Pittsford Crew center where real rowing teams practice and train for competitions! Students got a tour of the entire facility, checking out its skiffs, oars, and awards, and we even had the chance to try out rowing ourselves in the center's indoor pool, where Team Mrs. P. looked like a bunch of pros! Mrs. P.'s class would like to extend a huge thank you to the Pittsford Crew center for such a hospitable and fun learning experience!

Week 7

What a wonderful week it's been here in Mrs. P.'s class!

This week in physical education, Mrs. P.'s class started working on a new unit: jump-roping! Not only is jump-roping a fun, great way to keep out hearts healthy, it also helps students improve their coordination and balance. In health class, students began learning about two very important topic that students and teachers alike benefit from discussing: how boys and girls are different and even though some people may look different we are all very similar.

The class continues to learn about Germany while en route to the 2012 summer olympics. On Wednesday students had the opportunity to make a tasty healthy treat in this week's SPOT group. We made a delicious creamy German cucumber salad! <--(Click for recipe). The class located all of the ingredients, prepared the food and even got to taste the salad, some even wanted seconds! 

In music this week the class learned a traditional hand clapping dance. A song was played over the speakers and the students learned the steps so they could dance in unison with their peers.

Just a reminder, the trip to the Pittsford Indoor Rowing Club had to be rescheduled. The field trip has been moved to Wednesday November 2nd.

Also, Spooktacular is set for this upcoming Monday, October 31st. The festivities are set from 1 pm to 2 pm that afternoon. If your child is planning on dressing up for halloween please send the costume in with your child and they can put it on before the party.

First and foremost, thank all of you who attended our open house this week! We were so happy to see families and friends of Mrs. P.'s class here, to show you all of the hard work we have been doing in our various classes.

This week we did a number of things related to our classroom's theme country and sport: Germany and rowing! Students created cut-out "sight word" skiffs and even got to simulate a rowing experience as a team in the classroom. Melanie, our school principal, even got a chance to get in on the action, acting as our classroom coxswain to keep our boat motivated!

We also had the opportunity this week to learn about a local Olympian, Kristen Thorsness, who won the gold medal in rowing in 1984. Thorsness, who was recently inducted  into the Alaskan Sports Hall of Fame, now resides in Pittsford where she continues to practice rowing. Next week, Mrs. P.'s Olympians will pay this gold medalist a visit and possibly have a chance to sit down and row in her skiff!

Though it was a short week here at school, students in Mrs. P.'s class got a lot of work done and had a lot of fun! Some friends created tissue-paper leaves in art to line a tree in the art room, some finished beautiful wooden baskets to take home in woodworking, and some began work on what will be a German flag for our room, the first of many flags we will make for our Olympic classroom! All of these projects will be on display next week at Open House, so please come and check them out!

This Wednesday we were lucky to welcome some visitors to our classroom! Students were given special boards and chips to play BINGO using their sight words in place of numbers and letters. Everyone did a great job listening for and identifying their words, and were treated to a special snack and a book. Mrs. P.'s class would like to extend a big thank you to our visitors for bringing so much fun to our classroom!

Students made yet another set of sight word flashcards this week to play games and practice with at home. With a total of ten flashcards now, students can lay them out and "walk the line" right at home!

And finally, we celebrated the birthday of one of our very dear teachers this Friday, Janel Dieter. Happy birthday Janel, we love you! 

 

Week 4

In honor of our Olympic classroom theme, Mrs. P.'s class has begun learning about different countries which participate in the global games. The first country we've chosen to focus on is Germany! This past week students have been working on identifying where in the world Germany is located, what colors Germany uses in its nation's flag, and even got to hear the country's national anthem, a song that sounded kind of funny to us as it is sung in Germany's national language, German!

As lessons about Germany become part of our everday learning activities, words associated with it have worked their way into our growing list of sight words! Students this week created their own flashcards to practice these words at home, so please use them to ensure Mrs. P.'s Olympians keep finishing on top! These words have also been taped to the floor here at school, where students "walk the line" to identify and master them. Keep up the good work kids!

This week in gym class, students started a new unit: football! Having mastered the skills and rules of using our feet in soccer, students have started catching and throwing footballs using our hands to ace America's most loved sport. Alongside learning the rules to a new game, students have been introduced to the topic of manners in their health class. Students have been asked to identify what behavior and words constitute good and bad manners, and to recognize why good manners should be used all the time with all of their teachers, friends, and families. Every good Olympian knows that being a good sport and having good manners is as important as the sports they play themselves, and Mrs. P.'s class is on the road to be the very best we can be!

In SPOT this week, Mrs. P.'s class made booklets about Germany to take home! Students learned about different cars, foods and games that come from our European friends, and were even treated to one of the tastiest gifts they've given to the world community: gummi bears! Can you think of any other things we enjoy that come from Germany?

Thursday Mrs. P.'s class had the opportunity to work as a rowing team in a simulated Olympic event!  Rowing, besides being one of our classroom sight words, is a sport that requires teamwork, cooperation and communication! Students were divided into two teams, sat on scooters, and pushed themselves across the classroom for our own mini- Olympic event. Students used great communication and cheered each other on in the first of what will be a series of our classroom's Olympic games.

Students continue to thrive in their art, woodworking, computer and ceramics classes. Projects we've been working on will be on display at our upcoming Open House, so please join us this month to check them out!