December in Middle Pre-Primary

Hello parents, friends, family, and visitors,

Well, we sure have had a classroom of busy little elves over the past few weeks!  We have been making artwork to decorate the school for the ISG Christmas show, and we spent many afternoons practicing our Christmas show performance in preparation for our big debut.  We hope you were blown away by the sweet reindeers who graced us with their harmonious version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" : )  The children have continued to sing Christmas carols in the classroom, especially “Two Steps to the Left” and Upper Primary’s performance, “This Time of Year.”  That one really got stuck in our heads!  Maybe the children have brought those tunes in your homes, too?  This week the children have been making secret Christmas presents for their families and loved ones, writing cards, and preparing cinnamon apples for a little winter break celebration with our other pre-primary friends.  Busy little elves indeed : ) 

We finished our IPC Transport unit with a transport survey on De Pintelaan – we observed and recorded the vehicles that passed by, and later we counted our vehicles to make a report of what we saw.  Then we went on a special boat trip through the canals in Gent.  Wow!  In one unit of study, we took trams, buses, and a boat, and we even checked out the Gent Sint Pieters train station.  We saw a tractor, bicycles, and some very loud helicopters flying just above us on the playground.  Turns out Ghent is a perfect place to study transportation!  For our boat trip, we took the tram to the Graslei and Korenlei area and hopped on a special boat with a roof and windows.  We learned about the history of Gent and chatted about what we saw, and it was a big adventure.  We even saw some dolphin statues – of course Raghav and his friends were very excited!  We had help from one of our wonderful moms, Martina, who smiled for the duration of our 750 meter walk to and from the boat area as nine four-year-old children eagerly “helped” her push her son’s stroller along the cobblestones of Ghent.  Take a moment to imagine that one  : ) Martina, thank you for your grace and sense of humor!

Also, a big thank you for helping us add some tasty treats to the box we prepared for our pen pals in Maine!  I’ll be hand delivering the box to our pen pal school, the Winfield Children’s House, during the next few weeks when I travel back to America.  Then comes the fun part…waiting for a box to arrive addressed to Middle Pre-Primary classroom at ISG.  After we looked at some photos and talked about what life in a different country would be like, the children came up with some fascinating questions for their pen pals in Maine.  Do lobsters live in the water?  Do they live in the snow?  Do you stay inside when it snows or do you sometimes go outside?  Can boats go through ice?  What do moose eat when it is snowy?  (Gosh, Laura, I’m not even sure I could answer that one!)  So we will wait eagerly to hear from our little experts in Maine.

We prepared a big card with lots of photos and stories to say goodbye to our beloved Miss Marta, who we will miss dearly.  She has been such a kind teacher and friend to everyone in the classroom!  Miss Marta will be helping Miss Brigitte in the lunch room, so luckily we will be able to see her very often.  The children have been making sweet artwork to give to Miss Marta when they see her again – she is very missed in our classroom!

Lastly, we are thrilled to welcome some new children into our classroom in January.  We can’t wait to get to know our new friends and help them feel at home in our beautiful school!

Warm wishes for the holidays,

Miss Sophie