Mrs. Hallford’s Class Newsletter

December 1^st -4^th

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! We are very lucky to have such a long break – it is a great opportunity to become refreshed and excited about school! Now that Coach Hallford and I are completely moved and settled into our new house, and our computer is unpacked and set up, I promise that the class newsletters will be much more regular!

There are only two weeks left of this semester, and we have a lot of really fun things planned. Most importantly is our upcoming field trip to see A Christmas Carol performed at the Dallas Theater Center. We need to be ready to leave at 9:15 on Thursday morning, as the play begins at 10:30, and if you would like to attend with your child (and help us carpool!) please purchase a ticket ASAP. I need to know who is interested in attending with us, so I can get organized. Also, if you have not turned in the $12 for your child’s ticket yet, please do so promptly.

In preparation for this trip, we will be reading A Christmas Carol in our classroom. We will have to set Robinson Crusoe aside for the week, and I have high hopes that we can finish A Christmas Carol before this Thursday! I plan to incorporate this into our Art and History lessons for the week, with a lot of discussions about the language and culture of England in Dicken’s time, and some artistic narration. Rather than the formal narration that we usually do for literature, I plan to have the students work on a picture study of an illustration from the book, and then create their own illustrations of key scenes while listening to the story. I love projects like these, because we get to see how differently each student is visualizing the story, and what elements stood out for them. They are also a great opportunity to work on the Habit of Perfect Execution as it pertains to art.

I’m looking forward to a great week as we all learn about the true meaning of Christmas and the fine arts!

God bless,

Nicole Hallford