Questions, GGs, Elapsed Time, and Tribes

Time to connect with our teammates-
We do this often,  sharing answers to a couple of questions with different partners.
I ask the kids to share things like:
A time when you felt scared and how you handled it
A time when someone surprised you
A time when your feelings were hurt in a friendship and how you handled it
A time when you hurt someone's feelings and how you handled it

It was very sweet to have our grandparents join us for art with Julie last week. 

GG excitement! Here we are opening our cards on Day #1.

Our stuffies turned out so cool, no?!

Reading articles about our group's Native Californian tribe

Some of the plan for this week:

• A field trip to shop for gifts for elderly people living in assisted living homes who otherwise wouldn't receive a gift this holiday season. 
• Preparing for the super sweet Winter Celebration. It's one of my all-time favorite CCS traditions. 
• Visiting the 1st and 2nd graders' Spanish restaurante to put their work with Cecilia into action.
• Road Trip Project presentations
• Small novel study group discussions about Island of the Blue Dolphins
• Mental strategies for counting on with time. For example, it's 8:30 and we have two hours and forty minutes until break. At what time will we have break?
• Calculator skills 
• Final drafts of our imagined Native American constellation myths
• A verb in every sentence
• Commas in a series
• Lots of laughing and celebrating