SEATTLE FIELD TRIP

I loved making santa hats with the kids at First Place School. I met a friend. Her name was Asia. She gave me a card. We made lots of different things. I made a reindeer out of a candy cane and his name was Rudolph. I made a bead bracelet. After we made things, we ate lunch. Merry Christmas!

For our December field trip we went to Seattle. When we got there we met these kids from First Place School. We got to invite them to ice skate with us. Before that we made santa hats with them, friendship bracelets and a bunch of other stuff. While we were there we also ate lunch there with them. They said they wanted to go ice skating so we went to the ice skating rink to ice skate. Right when we got there we put our skates on and went out to ice skate. I could go really fast when I went the full length of the skating rink. I mostly just hung out with Roo and Sean. It was really fun.

I liked ice skating and helping Chris from First Place School learn how to ice skate at the Seattle Center. He learned to skate by using an ice skating chair. I skated for three hours. I had a good time.

PACIFIC SCIENCE CENTER
At the Pacific Science Center we were in groups with either our parents or our drivers. We could just walk around the center until the IMAX started. The IMAX was about Vikings. One of the things I liked about the Pacific Science Center was the touch tank. But before we could touch anything we had to wash our hands at a sink they had there. Another thing that was cool was a soda can thing. It showed how much a can of coke would weigh on the earth, the sun, the moon and some other places that I forgot. We ate lunch at a shelter by the doors of the Pacific Science Center. The field trip was really fun. If you’ve never been to the Pacific Science Center, then you should go!

When we went to the Pacific Science Center, we did lots of things like test our strength on a squeeze test machine, and on a biking tester. There was a new machine that lifts blocks, and there was a machine that lifts rocks. It is cool. I liked the exhibit "Whodunit?" There was lots of cool stuff. I did the pitching cage. That’s what I did the most. In the "Whodunit" exhibit we did a scavenger hunt. Some of the clues that I found were a screw driver, a tire mark, a dead body, and some other things. On the scavenger hunt we were trying to find a criminal and there turned out to be two suspects. They were Cary Cannon and Bruce Benson. We also got to watch a film and it showed a guy getting his heart out. It was a blast!!!!!!

THE BLACK NATIVITY
We went on a field trip and we went to a play. All the actors were black skinned, and it was about Baby Jesus. When Mary was pregnant, she was dancing around. I didn’t think that she should be dancing around because she was pregnant. The second part of the play was mostly singing and talking. You got to clap during the first play part. I liked the costumes. The play was the best play I have ever seen.

On December 8, we went on a field trip to Seattle. I was in Mr. Thomas’ car on the way there. We met some kids from the First Place School. Then we did a bunch of art projects. It was fun. My friends were Drew and Victor. They were nice. Then we went ice skating with them. After that we went to the Black Nativity. It is a play put on by African Americans about the birth of baby Jesus. And when they dance and sing you get to dance and sing too. It's so fun. My favorite character was Joseph. It was great.

We went to "Black Nativity". At the beginning of the play it was all about Mary and Joseph. They had a lot of songs about it, like the Little Drummer Boy and Joy to World. The second half was really fun because we got to stand up and dance, it was really awesome. Vinnie and Miles and I were rocking out same with my friend Graye. There was one person who was really wild. In the second half the choir acted like they were sitting in “church”. There was a really cool fountain in front of the theater. It was probably my favorite fieldtrip this year.

CHRISTMAS COOKIES FOR SENIORS AND VISITS
We were in the kitchen making cookies. I made peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses on top. I rolled the peanut butter cookies into a ball. We baked them so they were warm when we took them out of the oven. Then we put chocolate kisses on top. Altogether all the kids made over 1,000 cookies. Then we delivered them on Tuesday. When we were delivering them we went to the Richardson’s house. We sang Silent Night in sign language. Then we sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson played us the Rudolph song on a disk or whatever you call it (a record). It was really funny. I had a good time.

On the 12th of December we went over to the kitchen to bake cookies. The kinds were chocolate crinkles, lime bars, thumbprints and many more. My favorite part of making the cookies was adding all the ingredients together. The next day we went all over the island and gave the cookies to the seniors and visited with them. We also sang songs to them.

KNITTING GIFTS
Bean bags! Bean bags! It was so much fun to make them. We knitted lots of bean bags. I got my bean bag done when there was one more knitting class left. Other people finished their bean bags before I did. Mrs. Nutt especially finished hers before me. We made the bean bags so we could give them to the kids at First Place School. They took the bean bags and put them in their bags to take home.

About three months ago Mrs. Nutt started to do knitting with our class. She said that by December we would each have to knit a beanbag for the Seattle field trip. It was neat because even the 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders knitted one. The project was fun and rewarding when we gave them out at the end of the field trip.

CHRISTMAS TREES
When I walked into the classroom on Monday morning, something smelled different when I walked in. There was a Christmas tree standing by the file cabinets. We made snowflakes for the tree and we made other ornaments. The Christmas tree is beautiful. I am giving the whole class gifts, and I put them under the tree. But I cannot tell what they are because they are a surprise.

To decorate the Christmas trees we took a glass ornament. Then we took popcorn kernels and took all the butter off them. We took the kernels and put them in the ornament and we put the ornament with the popcorn kernels in the microwave for two minutes and thirty seconds. Sometimes people's ornaments would crack in the microwave. When they were all done we put our initials on the ornament. We also could put a little piece of tree branch inside the glass ornament. At the end we had to put wire or ribbon on it.

This one day my all of my class made these cool little ornaments. How we made them was to take a see through ornament, take 40 popcorn seeds, take the lid off the ornament and stick the popcorn seeds in it. Microwave it. Then your cool little ornament will be done.

CHRISTMAS PROGRAM
We are doing a Christmas program. It is tomorrow. I have a solo. I love my solo. It is fun to have a solo. I love the Christmas program. We are going to do one at the daytime and one a night. I love Christmas and our Christmas play is about Jesus and I adore Jesus. He is the best friend I ever had in my whole life.

We are about to do the Christmas program. I am in the harmony group and the melody group. It is so long I can barely keep up. There are so many songs in it that it is very hard to keep track of the songs that you have to do. It is very hard to remember them. You don’t really know when your part is coming up.

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS
I think my mom is going to be surprised when she opens the present that I made for her. I loved it. I hope she will too. I love to make things for my mom. We made flower vases. This is how we made them. We got a glass jar and we got tissue paper. We glued the tissue paper on the jars and let it dry. Then we glued jewels on the jars. After that we wrapped them up and we gave it to our moms.

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD
For Operation Christmas child we got shoe boxes and put wrapping paper on them. Then we got a lot of toys, school supplies, stuffed animals and things like that. We put as much as we could in the shoe box. Then we labeled them for what age of kid we wanted the shoebox to be given. The shoeboxes were sent to kids in other countries who can’t afford Christmas gifts. Mine was over flowing with stuff. It had a flashlight but it also had a radio in it and something like a CD player type thing. It also had a beanie baby, some markers and I think a slinky. I put in a lot of stuff.

MAKING MAGNETS FOR SENIORS
One day in November the elementary kids went to the junior high to make magnets and a card for the seniors citizens that go to the senior center. These all were for Thanksgiving Day. We sat with a 7th or 8th grader in the room. I chose to sit with Alaina, so did Halley Thomas. This is how we made the magnets. We took some runts (candy fruits) and we glued them on the piece of round paper and we took a soy cone and we glued that on the piece of paper too. We put a sticky magnet on the back of it and we had magnets for Thanksgiving Day. Once we were done making them we put them all in a box along with the cards we made, and we took them all to the senior center and passed them out to everyone in the center. And we all said HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING. It was so cool.

THANKSGIVING CARDS
I made Thanksgiving cards. It was fun. It was cool. I saw a turkey pop out off the card. We also made magnets to put on the refrigerator. The magnet had little pieces of candy and a little basket on it. We gave the cards and the magnets to the senior citizens right before Thanksgiving.

THE THANKSGIVING FEAST
It was one of the greatest days at school. On Tuesday before Thanksgiving Day, we had a big huge feast for the special holiday. We had tons of food. We had mashed potatoes, frozen fruit, cranberry sauce, stuffing and a lot of other stuff. We had the feast in our classroom. We had a lot of kids to feed so we moved all the tables together. Mr. Fleck came too. We all piled our plates with tons of food. But Soren totally over did it. She put a lot of food on her plate and then she piled her plate with two medium pieces of pie. By the time she was done with all her food, she was totally stuffed. I think that I speak for everybody when I say that we were all pretty stuffed when we were done. After everybody was finished and went out to play, Soren, Sierra, a lot of teachers, helpers and I stayed in and played with the microphones and helped clean up. After everyone was done playing and having fun, we all came in and read or something like that. Well that's about it for the feast. Thank you for reading about the famous Thanksgiving feast at our school.

By Caitlyn Marie Holley

PUMPKIN PIES
For our Thanksgiving feast we made pumpkin pies in the kitchen. My mom made a crust for the pumpkin pie. We have made other various items in the kitchen, but the pumpkin pie was the best. We have made apple pies, spice cookies and other types of cookies.

The ingredients for the pumpkin pie were 2 cups pumpkin (obviously), one can evaporated milk, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ginger, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¾ cup sugar. We made apple pies for the Katrina bake sale. We used the pumpkin pies for the Thanksgiving feast.

THANKSGIVING PLAYS
I liked the Thanksgiving play because I got to dress up like an explorer, but I dressed up as a cowboy kind of. Vinnie, my brother was in a play too, and his play was very funny. We had a big, big feast. I loved the mashed potatoes. We made biscuits and pumpkin pie too. We had stuffing, corn, blueberries, strawberries and other things. I felt stuffed after all the food we ate.

This Thanksgiving at OCS, each of our classes in the Elementary building did a kind of skit. The Primary room did a skit about the first Thanksgiving. Grades 3- 4 made a skit about what Thanksgiving is all about. It was really funny. 5th and 6th grade students (Including me) memorized a poem called The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven. Our poem went like this:

I thought the poem we did was funny, but I liked the other plays, too. All of them were really fun!

FLAG FOOTBALL CEREMONY
The flag football ceremony started at 11:30. We watched a movie of the flag football game at the Sportsplex in Bellingham. There was pizza, salad, and drinks. Then we all got tee shirts that say OCS Saints flag football team. After that we watched a little more of the movie. Some people in my classroom went to the ceremony. They are Graye, Herbie, Aubrey, Miles, Cameron, Kirsten and me.