To celebrate our state's birthday, we had a PIONEER DAY!

We dressed like Pioneers, and carried our books to school!

We used chalkboards (like early hornbooks) to do our work!

K, 1 and 2 grades rotated through classrooms, mapping out routes on trails (using corn kernels...)

panned for gold...

and sifted through rocks for gold!

Beware of "Fool's Gold" (gold tinsel)-it has no value!!!

Pastor Snow visited us and showed us what the gifts were that the Wise Men gave Jesus!

Gold,

Frankincense,

and Myrrh!

We Wise Men (Kings) rode our camels to see Jesus, too, and brought our gifts. The BETHLEHEM star led us!

We sang "O Come Let Us Adore Him...

...Christ the Lord!"

We had SO much fun at our Christmas party! Guess who joined us?!!!

It was a FUN afternoon! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Everyone!

We read lots of Gingerbread Man stories at Christmastime!

We made gingerbread glyphs that showed: if we liked a gingerbread boy or girl better, our favorite color, if we liked the taste...and we hung them in our hallway! The Nativities were made with graham crackers and gummy bears for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus!

Most of us LOVED rolling, cutting, baking and EATiNG our gingerbread man cookies!

But the REAL message of Christmas is JESUS' BIRTHDAY! Here we are getting ready to sing in our program!

Merry Christmas, Everyone! Jesus is BORN!!!

We learned food is scarce in winter, so God made bears able to rest, so they eat less! Their "fat" keeps them warm! We used Crisco in our experiment! It kept us warm!

Our favorite bears from home spent the day with us! We sang "We're going on a Bear Hunt" and had a PARADE!

We crawled like them!

We gave our last hugs before they hibernated...

...and tucked them in their den!

They will sleep until the New Year! Real bears hibernate for months, and wake up at times to eat a little!