Branch Families,
Dear Branch Families,
The Branch room is so excited to welcome the New Year! We hope you enjoyed your holiday season. As teachers, we felt the love and appreciation from our amazing Branch families—you are all simply the best! We finished this year with full hearts and hopeful eyes. Thank you for an incredible year!
December has always been a busy month. We enthusiastically celebrated the season, explored and created festive science experiments, and tested our taste buds with a variety of delicious activities. The Branchers are experts at turning anything into a learning experience. It’s amazing how simple activities can have such a big impact on our learning! For example, we made our own Lava Lamp with just a few easy ingredients, like water, oil, food coloring (and glitter because glitter makes everything better). We added Alka-Seltzer tablets to our colorful bottle for a scientific twist. Each Brancher was encouraged to “hypothesize” what would happen when adding Alka-Seltzer. We heard many creative and imaginative answers. The Branchers were excited when the red bubble began to ‘dance’ inside the bottle.
Another festive and exciting science experiment the Branch Room took part in was a Candy Cane Stripe Test, a simple activity with amazing results! Add one candy cane to each cup of cold and hot water and watch the magic happen. Gradually, the stripes started to fade, and the candy cane dissolved, leaving behind a red tint and a minty smell in the water. The Branchers noticed that each temperature caused the canes to dissolve in different times.
To add some math fun to our month, we did some Marshmallow Math! The Branchers were shown piles of marshmallows and asked to count them. It was no surprise to us that the Branchers did this easily! So, to make it more challenging, the Branchers were given TWO piles of marshmallows and then asked to ADD them together! They were totally up for the challenge; needless to say, they nailed it! What fun would marshmallows be without some tasty hot chocolate? We celebrated a job well done as we sipped our sweet hot chocolate.
It wouldn’t be a month in the Branch room without incorporating artwork! Our Branchers were busy creating a variety of festive art, such as yarn-wrapped triangle trees, texture painting with pine-branch textures, DIY puffy paint candy canes, newsprint-painted poinsettias, magical and memorable ornaments, and… because we lacked December snow, we even grew our very own snowflake! No month is complete without making another self-portrait. With each passing month, we see the Branchers become more controlled and detailed in their beautiful portraits. We hope you’re noticing the progress too!
We also got creative and crafted our annual Brancher Christmas ornaments. We measured ourselves in ribbon to make our special Branch/GT ornament. Then, we filled the ornament with ribbon, star cutouts, and plenty of sparkle! These ornaments are a wonderful keepsake, and we hope they’ll remind you over the years of just how special this age is—and how little they were.
This month, we had the honor of welcoming our very own Elf! None other than… Betsy Bells! She was sent from the North Pole to help us learn, discover, and celebrate this wonderful holiday season! Throughout the month, Betsy wrote us letters and shared fun and tasty activities. We never knew what exciting surprises she had hidden up her sleeve, which kept the Branchers eagerly looking forward to her visits each time!
As you can imagine, we had a lot of fun this month! Moving forward, we will take a trip ‘Around the World.” This study will be full of art, music, culture, traditions, and taste testing! The Branchers will pack their passports and head to Mexico, England, France, Japan, and India! Get ready for a month of adventure and travel!
Cheers to a wonderful year we have ahead of us. Thank you for your continued support. We feel as if we are the lucky ones indeed!
-Ms. Heather & Ms. Gracen
