December is a busy month for everyone! There is snow coming and the children are all excited by the thought of a White Christmas!

Thank you to everyone who donated supplies and time to help create and put the Graham Cracker Christmas houses together.Your generous support and help make these experiences possible and memorable for the children.
The children have been so happy and busy over the last few weeks with Concert and Breakfast with Santa and the Santa Shop and our graham cracker houses, making and decorating gifts our classroom feels like Christmas. The children have set up our little classroom Nativity and Advent wreath. They have worked so hard and I am so proud of their efforts and results in all they do. Wait till you see their special Graham Cracker houses... they are masterpieces!
I want to send out once again a heartfelt thank you to all our kind and helpful parents for their generous donations of supplies for the houses.  We made use of everything that got sent in for constructing the houses!!! Hugs to Peyton's mommy from the children for all the work she did to set up the houses for the next group of parents to work on. Ella, Samantha, Gianna's mommies all helped to put the houses together for the children.  Maryrita, Claire and Megan, Kaitlyn and Sean's and AJ's mommies helped the children add the finishing touches with Royal icing and candy treats. The many hands made this wondeful Christmas project a delightful memory for all of us. I cannot thank everyone enough for all they did. It truly has been a happy Christmas memory! I am ever grateful for the generous gift of time, effort and love for the children that all of these parents donated to our Pre-K 3 Christmas houses memories. I captured pictures of the preparation and making of the houses.Nicolas and Annabella's mommy donated square pretzels for the windows, Nathan's mom sent in mini peppermint sticks,Collette's mommy sent in MxMs, mini marshmallows and more, Sean, Megan and Kaitlyn's mommy sent in more Mx Ms and Peyton's mommy sent in bags of 10 X sugar. Nishka's mommy sent in Graham crackers.  I thought you would like to know that we used about 4 bags and 3 boxes of 10X sugar and 6 boxes of graham crackers, 4 large bags of MxM's and a box of 100 mini peppermint sticks, as well as gumdrops, a box of vanilla wafers, red and white peprmint candies, 1 bag of square pretzels, about 2 bags of mini marshmallows and 1 and a 1/2 dozen eggs, and about
1 1/2 cups of lemon juice to create our magical houses! I am enclosing the Royal Icing recipe for our families to have.

Recipe for the ROYAL ICING:
10 X sugar need 4 cups of this sugar
3 egg whites (only the whites no yolks)
1/8 tsp. lemon juice (fresh or bottled)
Put ingredients in a large bowl. Mix together with an electric hand mixer. If the icing is alittle runny when completed gradually add in a little more 10X sugar. Mix again and it will begin to thicken up. Cover the bowl that holds your icing with damp paper towels or use a damp kitchen towel over it. It is necessary to do this as the icing will get dry and very hard quickly. One bowl should be enough to complete several houses or one large house.

There were so many donations and I don't want to leave anyone out so please accept this BIG HUG from the children to all the parents who helped us out with the assorted donations of candies and marshmallows and 10X sugar, crackers, etc. You are all so special to us! Thank You again.

The last day of School before the Christmas vacation will be on December 23rd, Wednesday. We will return to school in the New Year  on Monday, January 4th,2010.

I wish for everyone at this holiday season God's Blessings for all your families and a prayer for Peace in the world and I will keep you all in my thoughts and prayers over this happy holiday time of year.

Please keep this schedule posted so you know the Show N Tell dates