Christmas Brownies

Brandon's mom brought the class yummy brownies for a Christmas snack on Tuesday. Thank you, Mrs. Prince! They were delicious!!!!

Making Christmas Ornaments

This week we have focused on Christmas Traditions: trees, stockings, and ornaments. Not only have we made some ornaments, we have written about them, too! Brandon showing off his snowman ornament!
Mrs. Maze's class working on their paragraphs about ornaments.

Mrs. Wheeler came and made the snowman ornaments with the class on Tuesday.

My Daddy

Please pray for my daddy as moves along to the next step on this long road to recovery. On Wednesday, my daddy will have his first radiation treatment. He will go every day for 20 minutes for 6 weeks. We are all a little anxious due to the unknown, but we have faith that he will do just fine!
Doesn't he look great!!!! We celebrated Christmas with his side of the family (Smith Family)Saturday night. His sisters, nieces, and nephews were so happy that he was able to be there. They could not believe how good he looked! We had a great time!

Toys for Tots

Thank you for sending in toys for our Toys for Tots Drive. Several Marines came to school on Thursday to pick them up. They were so nice to talk to each third grade class and answer any questions we might have had. They were really appreciative for all the toys we collected. Thanks so much for giving!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Watch Out Boston--Here Comes Paige!

My sweet friend who got me in this running business ran the Rocket City Marathon on Saturday. She had to run 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She ran it in 3 hours and 37 minutes. Way to go, Paige!!!!!!!! This Paige with her husband and brother.
Paige's brother paced her for 13 miles. He is a big time runner. He just completed an Ironman a couple of months ago.

Here is Paige getting her well-deserved MEDAL!

Here she comes! She made it to Boston!

We had the best time on Saturday. We were able to see her twice out on the course and at the finish line. We even tried to run a little bit with her, but she was way too fast for these legs!!!
She is an amazing runner, coach, and friend! I am proud so proud of her!!!

This Week's Story

This week's story is a biography. The children will be tested on this selection on Friday.

Pray for Christine Pendley

December is traditionally a month of joy and celebration, but a member of JHES family, Christine Pendley, has recently been knocked down with the news that her cancer has returned. Sadly, this time it is non-operable. The doctor's give her a 5%-7% chance of survival. However, Christine's faith is strong and her spirit is amazing!

First of all I just ask that you lift Christine, her family, and her doctors up in prayer. Next, I feel like our class can help them out during this emotional time. She has four precious children that she has to feed. Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate for us to collect gift cards to fast food restaurants. The amount does not have to be extravagant. Five dollars to McDonalds would help them out. If you are interested in giving to the Pendley family please send your gift card(s) to school by Thursday, Dec. 18. I will make sure she gets them. Also, this next week we will be making "get well" cards for me to deliver to her.

If you are interested in reading about Christine's situation please visit her caringbridge site at www.caringbridge.org/visit/christinependly

Toys For Tots

We need all toys for this charity by this Thursday. The toy does not need to be wrapped. Thanks for your participation.

Class Party

We will have our Christmas Party on Thursday, December 18 at 8:00. Kim Parker will be sending home some information real soon. That morning the children may come to school in his/her pajamas prepared to eat pancakes and watch the Polar Express. While we are watching the movie, the children will be decorating gingerbread houses.

Kim will be looking for volunteers to send in items for the pancake breakfast and the gingerbread houses. She will also be looking for people to help cook and serve the pancakes that day. Anyone who wants to come is more than welcome. The more hands we have for the breakfast and the gingerbread houses the better. The party will be over at 10:30 because we have art. We also will need a couple of parents to come Tuesday or Wednesday to assemble the gingerbread houses for the kids to decorate.

The school sing-a-long will be at 1:15 in the gym. Yes, that is when Hannah Montana will make her grand appearance. Do you want to miss that?

Things That Come In Groups

We started our unit on multiplication today. To open this unit we read a book called Things That Come in 2's, 3's, and 4's. After the story, we started brainstorming lists of things that come in groups from 2 to 12. Hannah and Emma worked hard their list and Paige and Shelbie worked hard on theirs. It sounds a lot easier than it is. These girls found that out quick.

We worked on the 2's list as a class: 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 arms, bicycle wheels, 2 hands, 2 feet, 2 halves make a whole, 2 lips, 2 nostrils, 2 legs, 2 parts of the day (A.M./P.M.), twins, etc. By the end of our lesson, we had something on every list except the 6's and the 11's. Our 7's, 8's, and 9's were also a little weak. Try to think of some at home.

Elf on the Shelf

Look who we found sitting on our mantel when we woke up Friday morning. It is an Elf on the Shelf. The boys have named him Bernard. He spends each day with us and returns to the North Pole each night to report his findings to Santa. By the time we wake up each morning he is back at our house, but we have to search to find him. Saturday morning we found him in the kitchen. Sunday morning we found him the bathroom. This morning he was in the boys' room. This is the book we found on our front door step Thursday night explaining the rules of Bernard. For example, we are not allowed to touch Bernard because he will lose his special, magical powers.

We have enjoyed having an elf in the house. Our behavior has been much better!!!!

This Weekend....

This weekend I had the honor of babysitting my precious niece and nephew while my brother and his wife went to the Alabama game. For entertainment, we got up early Sat. morning and headed downtown for the Frosty Freeze race. Smitty was the first to cross the finish line of the three boys!

Here is a picture of Patton, Smith, and Sam all bundled up in the car. Yes, it was 24 degrees outside. Here are the three runners waiting for their 1 mile run. They were so excited about having a number pinned to their shirts.

Here is Patton after he crossed the finish line. He just collapsed in the grass.

Precious Penny sat on the curb all bundled up. Penny and I were cheerleaders for the boys!

Sam was so excited when he crossed the finish line. He did a great job!

This is the start line. David ran with the boys during the 1 mile race.

David ran the 5K this weekend. He finished a few seconds before 21 minutes! Way to go, DADDY!

Making Christmas Ornaments

On Friday, Mrs. Parker came to our room and made a precious Christmas ornament with the children. Colton is working hard on his wreath. They really enjoyed putting the stars and bells on their wreaths.

Here is picture of what we made on Friday. I hope yours is hanging on your Christmas trees.

Here is sweet Hannah showing off her beautiful wreath. She did a wonderful job.

Paige and Kenneth are working hard.
Will loved having his mom in the classroom. It always special to have your mom as a teacher every once in awhile.

Ben showing off his work of art. It looks great, BEN!

Mrs. Parker has such a wondeful talent. She is the craftiest (Is that a word?) person I know!

Thank you, Mrs. Parker for coming to our room and making an ornament with us. We had a great time! She is coming back this FRIDAY! YIPPEEEEEE! We cannot wait to see what we are going to make next.

NO updates.....

I hope to post what has been going on in the classroom as well as in my life on Monday. My computer caught a virus (BEWARE FACEBOOK USERS), so I have been computerless since Thursday. It is at the shop, and hopefully the computer man has been able to fix it. I have been totally loss without it. I cannot get to my pictues, my lesson plans, my newsletter, and lots more. Mrs. Coon has been going crazy! I am going to give my computer a big hug and a kiss when I get it back!

Today...

Our Class Spelling Bee Winners: Will and Austin

These two boys will be heading to the school-wide spelling bee in January.

We finished reading our 1st read of "Lemons and Lemonade" today. Please read it again at home with your child before Friday. It has taught them a lot about supply and demand.

Here is the our vocabulary words for this week. We also added the words net, gross, and capital to this list. These words should be in their Bee Books behind the reading tab.

Volunteers Still Needed for Christmas Ornaments

(Details below in earlier post)

Kim Parker is doing an ornament with the class this Friday, December 5.

Anyone up for next Friday???
Anyone up for any day the last week before Christmas???

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

This morning, I could not keep the children away from the window when it started snowing. They were so excited! Finally, they talked me into bundling up and heading outdoors to play in it! IT WAS COLD!!!! Here is Joshua freezing!

I think every class at JHES went outside to enjoy the season's first snow fall. This is a picture of Mrs. Halbrook's Class (2nd grade) playing in the snow outside our window.

Kenneth was able to gather enough snow to make a perfect, little snowball!

Do you see the excitement in these two precious faces? Malia and Amanda had a blast playing in the snow!

Shelbie was also very excited, but COLD! She stayed bundled up in her warm coat!

I could not resist taking a picture of Paige's hair.

We had a fun time! It was sad to see the snow go away!