Sunday, January 23, 2011

December Was a Busy Month

We hosted the Native American culminating event by inviting all kindergarteners from K-2 and K-3 to sing, chant, play our drums and do the 'feather dance' . This dance was taught to us by a Narragansett tribal member, Loren Spears and her students, from the school Neweetooun School. Miss Jeana demonstrated the dance and many of the children succesfully captured the feather. Excellent job everyone!

In December, the monthly language is Swedish. K-1 learns to greet each other in Swedish (God morgan!), learns to count to ten, and sings and dances to a Swedish favorite called Sma Grodorna ( a song about a little frog). As part of our monthly study, we were treated to a visit by Santa Lucia ; ). On December 13th, in Sweden, the youngest girl dresses in a tradtional outfit, which includes a long white dress with a red sash and a green wreath with glowing white candles. The girl wakes early that morning and delivers coffee, Lussekatter, and Pepperkakor to all the members of her family. This celebration is to observe the longest night of the year (under the Gregorian calendar this was actually Winter Solstice) Well, every St. Lucia day, I, Ms. Mitchell, dress in my traditional outfit and deliver a small white candle to all the children to help celebrate St. Lucia. During rest time, when the lights are out, I visit each classroom and teach the children how to say thank you (tack sa mycket) in Swedish. They were delighted to see me arrive with a full set of candles on top of my HEAD (battery operated). Such Magic! = )

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