How Many Monkeys?

Has your kid been talking about monkeys at school?  Have you been wondering what that is all about?  We have been counting how many students have bananas in their lunch boxes each day.  The students who have bananas get to stand up and act like monkeys at the beginning of first nutrition break.  On occasion, Mrs. Piquette has forgotten to count the monkeys, but never fear: the students remind us EVERY DAY.  We have now started graphing how many monkeys we have each day.  Here are some students to show us what it's like to be a monkey at school.

What do you think of our monkey tradition?  Can you think of some other things we could do to tally different fruits?  Apples?  Strawberries?  Raspberries?

December Has Arrived!

There's excitement in the classrooms and halls at SIB as the holiday season quickly approaches.  On December 1st, we noticed that the children's excitement level was quite heightened, and were thankful that it was day "4-est."  We went for a long ramble in the woods, and found the "Smiley Tree" that we saw last week with Mr. Leader (our supply teacher for two days).

The children explored a new area of the forest, where many trees had fallen.  there were lots of logs to balance on and sit along.  Some students attempted climbing the smaller trees using the branches that had fallen.  A few children pretended that one of the logs was a "rocket ship" and climbed on to blast off into outer space.

We also discovered that our own Elf on the Shelf had arrived in room 105.  A few children discovered the elf when they came in first thing in the morning.  He was sitting on top of our gingerbread house that we decorated on Wednesday.  The class came up with possible names for our elf, and Mrs. Piquette closed her eyes and pointed.  The big winner was "JAMES" so that's his new name!

Today (December 2) was also a very big day.  We started by arriving at school and peeking in the window to see if we could spot James.  The students were so excited that we couldn't keep them away from the window!  When we finally discovered him in the cubby area, we came inside and noticed that he had eaten some candy from our gingerbread house!  Luckily, the manager from Bulk Barn didn't notice when she came to pick up the gingerbread house.  Phew!

Speaking of the Bulk Barn gingerbread house, please be sure to visit the Bulk Barn this month to vote for your favourite.  You vote by adding coins to the container with our gingerbread house.  All money raised goes to Christmas charities in the region.

Only 2 days into December, and already so many updates!  Stay tuned for a paper update coming home in your child's home bag today.  Wowzers!