MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2025

Today, we played with puns and created punny snowman! A Punny Snowman is when the snowman’s name is a winter pun on a well-known name. This is a fun way for students to demonstrate mastery of creating and understanding puns, as it is a type of figurative language that is often encountered but forgotten about and only seen as a joke.

We also put our critical thinking skills to work with some game play – including a brand new game being added to our rotation: Scrambled! Students roll the letter dice and pick out their colors to create a crossword using their rolled letters. Students worked in stations, one playing some UpWords, another beloved game of Cap!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2025

We did some Quill practice before heading to the theater to practice for our Holiday Program on Thursday!

Unfortunately, due to the ice on the sport court, we were unable to enjoy some outdoor recess in the warmer weather. However, that didn’t phase us as some students took the time to build a blanket fort!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2025

We did our quick write today as our show is tomorrow, and Friday is reserved for some community building holiday fun! Today’s champion was Leo!

Then, we did some final run throughs for our show tomorrow, and used our critical thinking to solve a bit of a holiday riddle. Students practiced reading carefully to read some clues to figure out which person at the ugly sweater parter wore which ugly sweater. They then used their organization skills to chart out their findings to work towards their answers. Finally, they practiced reading charts/graphs to pick out two characters and draw their ugly sweaters.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2025

Today was show day! We hope you all enjoyed our performance!

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2025

Did someone say Secret Santa!? The time has finally come, for students to open their Secret Santa gifts and reveal who they had! So, we got all cozy with some blankets and pillows on the floor, and got to work enjoying our classroom community before break.

Then, it was time for a surprise raffle… for a Labubu! Yes, we fell for the trends, and students were able to enter in an optional raffle for a mystery box Labubu from PopMart. Each student was given a free raffle entry (if they wanted it), but for those who really wanted the Labubu, they could spend 2 dojo points for additional entries. Despite only entering her name twice, Vasia won! We followed blind box opening rules, and had her say which one she hoped it was. She was hoping for Happiness or Hope… and in classic blind box fashion, got Loyalty! If you’ve ever seen a blind box unboxing, you know you almost never get the one you hope for – the Labubu chooses you, not the other way around!

Finally, it was time to spin the wheel to reveal our movie we would watch together. The options were:

1. The Grinch (Cartoon)
2. The Naughty Nine
3. The Santa Clause
4. The Grinch (With Jim Carrey)

The wheel landed on the 90s classic, The Santa Clause! So, students grabbed their favorite snacks, and enjoyed some candy and hot cocoa from Leo’s Family, and shared some laughs while creating some memories.

Students thought the Labubu Raffle was my hinted surprise… but it was just a distraction for the real surprise. As a class, they have been begging to have Chip join our class. So, what better way to end our last day of school before break together than with a surprise guest cuddle bug!?

I hope everyone has a fantastic winter break! I look forward to sharing more of our learning with you when we return! (:

MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2025

Today, we started with students taking their pushed-back vocabulary tests. Once students took their tests, they were able to enjoy some silent reading time. In the afternoon, students got their tests back to know which set to study for Friday’s test, and we learned the next set of vocabulary. Since our large group song was changed, it was important we took some time today to ensure we knew all the of the lyrics without our lyric sheets!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2025

We started with a quill work period to keep our grammar skills up despite all the holiday fun we are having… and speaking of some holiday fun, we finally finished our class song choreography! We are so excited for you to see it on stage next Thursday! (:

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2025

On Wednesday, we had a combined rehearsal for our new large group song with Mr. Joe’s class. Then, it was time for us to begin making some props. We started by making some individualized candy canes for our large group performance proper. We brainstormed some creative ways we could decorate and create our candy canes, and students exercised their critical thinking skills by figuring out how to make their creative candy cane prop dreams a reality with the supplies available to them.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2025

We started with a large group rehearsal of the entire 2nd floor with Ms. Marta. When we returned to class, we took some time to rehearse the song motions we just learned and do a couple of run-throughs of our recently finished choreography. At the beginning of our class dance, our elves need to hold some presents for Santa. However, we didn’t just have fun making this prop – but we practiced some of our math skills! This is the perfect opportunity for our class to get some practice in on building 3-D shapes by designing their own shape nets in preparation for continuing to build their Geometrocity projects when we return from break! Students also utilized some of the skills they learned through our Mindset Math skeptics activity to cover their prop creations in construction paper in a way that was not wasteful, and looked polished. However, we couldn’t resist a couple of holiday song singing/dance breaks while we worked.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2025

We started with our quick write, and it has been amazing to see some new challengers for the title of our weekly quick write champion! Today, it was an intense showdown between Jason and Maggie as they tied for using 15 words. However, Jason made a fatal mistake – he forgot to include today’s word of the day! One of the rules of the quick write is that we must use all of this week’s words before previous words can count for points. So, Maggie was able to maintain her title as this weeks quick write champion! After their quick write, they took their vocabulary test.

During our afternoon block, we took some time to finish up our props. Groups of students who had already finished their props practiced their inference skills by working on a packet predicting what I would be doing during Winter Break. Students use all the things they have learned about me in our classroom community building activities to assist them in making inferences of what I will do over winter break to various prompts. Not only is this a fun way to practice a valuable ELA skill, but there’s a fun incentive for them to try their best – any prompt they infer about my winter break correctly earns them 3 Dojo points!

Science with Ms. Pam!

Students began learning about the importance of adaptation in nature through their bird beak lab. Students became birds and attempted to use different tools as their beaks to learn the advantages and disadvantages of different beak types and emphasize the importance of adaptation in species. Then, students began group research presentations and researched single-cell organisms.

Math with Mr. Zafeiris!

Students continued to practice solving equations and used their knowledge of finding angle measurements with their background knowledge of triangle characteristics to strengthen their understanding of angle relationships and Geometry.

I look forward to sharing more of our learning with you next week! (:

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2025

Today, students were eased back into our school routine by learning our new vocabulary words this week. We played some study games, and ended the period by singing our Holiday Concert songs a couple of times to get it back in our brains to begin learning choreography. In our next class period, we assigned our class song roles to set us up for success in choreographing our chorus.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2025

Today, we began working on our Multicultural Monday written reflections to display alongside their beautiful collages. As we began working on our written reflections, students learned what MLA format is, and how to properly format a blank Google Doc to abide by MLA guidelines – a helpful skill they will use for the rest of their academic career!

To ensure our reflections are the highest quality of writing possible, we will be utilizing the writing process. Students will receive feedback on their writing sometime this week, and continue editing and revising next week.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2025

We grouped up with Mr. Joe’s class today in preparation for the Holiday Concert and got some group song rehearsal time in. Then, when we returned to our class, it was time for some community building with setting up our Classroom Secret Santa! Students filled out their questionnaire one period, and once they finished, took some time to practice their grammar with Quill. During our later class period, we drew names!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2025

Today was our big choreography day. We figured out our stage placements, and choreographed most of the song, being sure to practice singing and dancing. As a reward for their hard work and focus, we played a couple rounds of Desert Island. In this game, we practice our pattern tracking and critical thinking skills! I start by saying something I am bringing the the desert island that follows a secret rule. Students then suggest other items for me to bring – if it follows the rule, I add it to the list. If it does not follow the secret rule, I say I cannot bring it to the island. Their goal is to work together to figure out the secret rule!

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2025

This morning was the time our class has been waiting for – IT WAS TIME TO SHOP THE PLATO ACADEMY HOLIDAY SHOP! Since many students were shopping for their families, I didn’t want to take any photos of them shopping or wrapping to keep any of their gifts a surprise as they were incredibly proud of their gift picking work. However, they were some busy shoppers, so please enjoy a group haul photo!

In our afternoon class, we did our word of the day, and ended up postponing our Vocabulary Test for Monday. This is because, our large group song has been updated to a more upbeat tune. While we are excited for the update, we needed to use our original test time to learn the new song to allow students the weekend to practice it, as our Holiday Concert is quickly approaching! However, it wouldn’t be a Friday without our quick write – and today’s winner was Maggie using 18 vocabulary words!

Science with Ms. Pam!

Students worked on creating review games of everything they learned about DNA, and began researching different animals and learning about their adaptations and how those adaptations help them survive in the wild.

Math with Mr. Zafeiris!

This week we worked on eliminating fractions from equations, and in geometry we combined our algebra skills to form equations and learned strategies for finding angle measures. The students show strong interest in both algebra and geometry.

I look forward to sharing more of our learning and community building with you next week! (: