Henderson Collegiate prepares for the Holidays

The weeks leading up to Christmas break Henderson Collegiate had one goal - blow the audience away at our annual Parent Pride Night. PPN is an evening of entertainment put on by the students at HC. The fourth graders performed academic chants - including chanting ALL the times tables in rhyme and telling the story of Frindle, one of their class novels. The fifth grade put on an original play - A Christmas Carol in a version written by my team leader about how Scrooge hates reading. We honestly practiced about 3 hours A DAY for three weeks. I was in charge of the props and the back drops. I designed 5 sets (they are SOO impressive) and the kids painted them. They play may not have been perfect, but it taught our students a valuable lesson. If you want something to be great you MAKE it great. These kids worked their hearts out and got to experience the feeling of satisfaction that comes from putting in the effort to make something amazing.

I have attached below a 10 min clip of the play, it was about 25 mins long. If any of you are DYING to see the rest, just let me know and I'll include more in a future blog.

And now, in their YouTube debut, here is Henderson Collegiate performing their version of A Christmas Carol.

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time!!!

Our Festive Fireplace!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving Jackson and I really got into the Holiday spirit. We spent the day prepping our house for Christmas. We have a beautiful fireplace that we strung with an evergreen garland, I picked up a fresh Christmas tree, and Jackson hung lights on our cute little house. It was an all day effort! After I finished stringing the lights on the tree and Jackson returned the latter to a neighbor we decided enough was enough. We thought it would be nice if we saved trimming the tree for family night or other evening together.

Our Holiday House after Saturday's efforts!

Monday came and went. No ornaments on the tree. Before we knew it, another weekend was upon us. Friday after school we were determined to have a festive evening - watch Elf and trim the tree. We grossly over-estimated our energy level after a long work week. We popped in Elf at around 7:00 and before we were ten minutes in, we were both sound asleep on our loveseat. Don't you hate it when you fall asleep on the couch??? Sometime in the midde of the night we drug ourselves to bed.

Last night there were no if's, and's or but's about it. That evergreen was transformed into a Chistmas tree. Below are some pictures of the results.

A creepy picture of me decking the halls... can you guess the photographer of the evening?

Ahh, me enjoying the finished product: a trimmed tree, Elf and a cup of hot cocoa!

Now the Holiday Season can officially begin!