Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all the very best for a happy and healthy New Year!

I look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Monday, January 6th. 

Take care,

Jennifer Larmer

What a fantastic concert the kids put on last night! It was great to see all of you there enjoying the festive spirit. :)

This week we did some holiday-themed writing and word work. We continue to work at developing our sentences using description and details and are beginning to use a variety of sentence starters to share our ideas.

Many students shared their family's holiday traditions this week. We enjoyed learning about traditions from Serbia, Hong Kong, India, and Ukraine.  If your child has not yet shared your family's tradition, please send me a photo or two of what your family enjoys doing during the holidays as well as a short explanation. It's been interesting to see all the different traditions! Please email me your photo (if you have one) and short explanation to jllarmer@cbe.ab.ca.

If you have not yet returned the signed permission form for your child to eat our "Stone Soup" next Tuesday, please do so on Monday. If I do not receive the signed form, your child will not be able to enjoy the soup, bannock, and butter we will be making as a class to celebrate the Winter Solstice. This is due to concerns around food allergies. If your child's form did not make it home this past week, please email me and I will send home a second copy.

Mrs. McLean, our librarian is requesting that all library books be returned by Thursday as she will be doing inventory. The students will not be taking out a book this week. 

FESTIVE WEEK at MTS

During the last week of December (16-20), students and staff are encouraged to wear their favorite holiday sweaters, outfits, and accessories each day to celebrate the upcoming holidays.

On Thursday, December 19, wear your favorite pair of pajamas to school for the day. Dr. Slater will be reading her favorite book in the morning and Parent Council will be providing each student with a snack.

Upcoming Dates

December 16-20                   Festive Week - Wear festive clothing ALL week! :)

December 16                        Caroling 9:30-10:00

December 18.                       Caroling 1:15-1:45

December 19                       Pajama Day

December 23-January 3     Winter Break - NO SCHOOL

January 6                             Classes resume after Winter Break

Our focus sight words during Shared Reading this week were: with, was, like, that. These are words that your child should now be familiar with and be able to identify in any reading you do with them at home. After we focus on specific words each week, the words are put on our Sight Word board and the students refer to them when they are completing independent writing tasks. Next week, I will send home a list of all the sight words we have worked with so far this year. Any practice/review you can do of these words with your child will benefit their development of reading and spelling skills.

The students have been practicing a lot for their upcoming Christmas concert and they sound great! We are very excited to have you come and see this festive and fun celebration next Thursday at 5:30 pm. The show will be short and sweet - approximately 25 minutes. if you are unable to attend at 5:30, you are welcome to attend the dress rehearsal on Thursday morning at 10 am. ** Please note that there was an error in the time stated for the evening performance in last week's blog.

Here are all the details about the MTS Christmas Concert on Thursday December 12. Grade 1​ Doors Open @ 5:15pm - ​ parents send children to classrooms and go to the gym (no parents in classrooms) Show Starts @ 5:30pm (approximately 25 minutes long) ​ ​ Grade 2 & ¾ Choir ​ Doors Open @ 6:45​pm – parents send children to classrooms and go to the gym (no parents in classrooms) Show Starts @ 7:00pm (approximately 35 minutes long) ​ ​ Dress Rehearsals  ​(families can attend) Grade 1 Dress Rehearsal 10:00 am (Kindergarten and Gr. 3 to watch)​ Grade 2 & ¾ Choir Dress Rehearsal 1:30 (Kindergarten and Gr. 4 to watch)

** Recommended student attire for the clothing is festive clothing in festive colours, if possible. The clothing can be fancy or more casual. Children can wear Santa or elf hats, holiday hairbands, etc. but please no Rudolph noses or anything that covers their face.

This week, we created Reindeer art to go along with one of our songs. Please look for it in the hallway outside the Gym at next week's celebration. Here's a sneak peek:

We learned a fun, new Math game this week. It is a Roll to 100 game that includes blizzard obstacles and snowmen quick passes. I will be sending home a copy with your child to play with family and/or friends next week.

In Science, we continued our focus on Investigations and learned about making predictions. We did an experiment to learn about floating and sinking. The students made predictions prior to us doing the experiment and compared these "smart guesses" to the results. We learned that it does not matter if your prediction is different than the actual result. What matters is the learning that took place from doing the experiment.

Today, we listened with our Buddies to a story called, The Pinata that the Farm Maiden Hung by Samantha Vamos. We have a few students in both classes who are of Latin American descent. The students learned that pinatas are part of many celebrations including Christmas. We then made our own beautiful pinatas. The students are encouraged to fill their pinata with a few small gifts and/or kind notes and to give it to a friend or family member as a gift. 

Today, we also listened to a story called Chez Bob read in Ukrainian. One of our classmates is from Ukraine and it was interesting for us to hear a story being read in his language. We now fully appreciate how challenging it is for him to follow along when listening to English stories. Fortunately for us, we could pause after each page was read and read it in English. Here is a link to the story on Youtube, if you are interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZuPVDL4Osw

I sent home a fun homework page with everyone this weekend. Your child's task is to disguise their Gingerbread boy/girl and bring it back to share on Monday. 

There was also a letter sent home regarding sharing a family tradition. We will begin to share our winter holiday traditions beginning on Monday.

Light Up Someone’s Life

This holiday season, McKenzie Towne students and staff are encouraged to support The Magic of Christmas. 

Every Christmas Eve, The Magic of Christmas loads up Calgary Transit buses that are magically transformed into “reindeer buses”, with hundreds of gifts and volunteers dressed as Santa and his elves.  Then they deliver Christmas spirit into the homes and hearts of those who need it most. 

From now to December 18, please bring in new, unwrapped donation items (not food) and place them in the boxes located in the front foyer.  

Please see the attached wish list for ideas of items to donate. 

For more information or to make a monetary donation, please visit:  www.themagicofchristmas.org/donate