The Christmas Season

Our Jesse tree is now almost complete. We've finally arrived at the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus, and will hear about Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the magi. As we approach Christmas, please remind your child that this is a season of giving, which can include gifts like hugs, smiles, or kind deeds, and that Jesus should be the center of our celebrations.

We are almost done with several different subject areas now. We only have one chapter left to read of The Whipping Boy, where we have been talking about cause and effect. We've also discussed different elements of a plot, including rising action, climax, falling action, and solution, and made "story mountains" for books we've read in class and the play we went to see. We are also discussing parts of a paragraph and adding good topic sentences, transition words, and conclusions to how-to paragraphs. In science, we're learning about the solar system, which is leading to many interesting questions. If your child wants to explore this subject some more, some websites I recommend include:

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/osskids/index.html
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/

Finally, we have been talking about the economy and government in social studies, and doing activities like creating business plans for our own businesses and nominating people (sometimes imaginary) to serve in the various branches of the government. We will have an open notebook test tomorrow on the topics we have covered in social studies.