A Very Merry Christmas Party!

Mitchell won the "pass the present" game

I love my kids!

oh, this poor tree...

we watched Madagascar this afternoon


wonderful gifts from wonderful students


they liked their gifts from me

our goofy tree with many gifts

getting ready to open our presents

Yeah, today was the last day of school before Christmas and New Year's break!! We had a super fun day today. The morning started with a Bible and spelling test, and everyone did excellent. What awesome students I have been blessed with! Then we played the rest of the day. We did some word games and puzzles that took a few minutes each and winners got a piece of candy. Our first big activity was a "pass the present" game. For the first round I read a story I got off the Internet; every time I said "left" or "right" the gift was passed that direction. At the end of the story, the person with the gift unwrapped a layer of paper. Then I played music and when it stopped another person unwrapped a layer. So on and so forth til the gift was completely unwrapped. Mitchell was so excited to win the book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet.

We did our gift exchange...everyone got what they wanted from each other and from me. And, I got some pretty neat stuff from them. Mostly chocolate. Bummer =) We had a pizza lunch at noon, then came back to class for my favorite part: an auction! I bought 18 fun, under-two-dollar gifts and wrapped them. Each students had $100 (plastic bingo chips) to spend, and they could bid on whatever they wanted. Everyone got at least two gifts. They seemed to enjoy it. Maybe this will become a tradition in my class. You know, something for upcoming students to look forward to. I certainly had fun! After lunch we played the animal game (they figured out that if they got me laughing hard enough I would get out. but, I was able to get control and held my first- chair position!) Our final event of the day was watching Madagascar. More laughing! Oh, it was fabulous day. I love my students, I love my school, I love my job, I love the Lord...life is truly beautiful!