Happy Holidays!

I hope all of you have a very happy winter vacation.  I know you will all be excited and ready to return to school in January!  Here are a few photos for you to enjoy that were taken at our Santa's Workshop Holiday Party before our vacation.  Thank you to everyone who was able to send in items and also to those of you who came to help us put together our ornaments.  We had a great time!

Mr. Brekke (a Hearts' Stories Guest!), DJ, Madison W, and Jayden making cork reindeer.

Alayna's mommy, Mrs. Bailey, with Tiara and Marcus making reindeer ball ornaments.

Kyle, Ashleigh, and Hailey with Miss Kenney who is one of our Coastal Mentors.

Madison P, Caleb, Seslyn (and her step mommy Nicole), with Jayden's mom making scratch off ornaments.

Madison and Caleb showing off their great work!

Jammie, Diana, and Brylee making candy canes.

Miss Donghia, our very special intern from Coastal Carolina.

Millie and Nicky with Mrs. Clark a mentor from Coastal Carolina.

Alec showing off his gingerbread man magnet.

Alayna, Ethan, and Kaylan at the food table.  We didn't have enough to eat as you can tell!

Mr. Brekke and Ethan.  It always makes me so happy to have Dad volunteers!

Seslyn and her step-mommy Nicole.

Mrs. Jennifer LeFever, Alec's Special Guest

Alec and Mrs. LeFever

We were a small group this day!  I love the shirts though!

Great silly Christmas vacation faces!

What a special opportunity it was to meet Alec's special guest, Mrs. Jennifer LeFever.  Mrs. LeFever has been a Hearts' Stories guest before 3 years ago and it was so wonderful to have a guest return and come and tell their story again.  Alec's big sister, Isabella, was in a Hearts' Stories classroom when she was in 2nd grade and Mrs. LeFever was also her special guest.  What a testament to Mrs. LeFever and the impact she is having on Alec's family and on all the children she meets.  Mrs. LeFever is a horse rider who began showing in interest in horses from a very early age.  She took her first riding lesson when she was 3 years old and now she is a trick rider and works at Double C Ranch.  Mrs. LeFever worked for Dixie Stampede for 13 years and she also brings her horse Rosie to Carolina Opry for the Christmas Show.  We got to see a very cool video of her showing some of the tricks she can do while she is riding a horse and we were very impressed!  Most of the time now you can find Mrs. Le Fever working at Double C Ranch taking care of the horses and giving lessons to students.  She also does a lot of work with the Fidelis Foundation which helps introduce kids to horses.  For more information about this wonderful organization click here.  I wish the weather had cooperated with us so we could have seen Mrs. Jennifer in action, but we all know where to find her at Double C!

Ashleigh's Special Guest, Miss Kendall

On December 10th we had a fantastic interview with Miss Jessica Kendall who was Ashleigh's special guest.  Miss Kendall works at Gymnastics Inc. where Ashleigh goes after school and also takes classes.  She is an athletic trainer and helps all the cheerleaders, gymnasts, and dancers who go to Gymnastics Inc.  Miss Kendall is originally from Maine and she grew up doing a lot of skiing.  In fact, she was so good at Alpine Skiing that she attended the Jr. Olympics 9 times and even earned a gold medal.  She ended up with a shoulder injury and couldn't continue skiing so she decided to go to college.  She got her degree in Exercise and Sports Science and she also has a Master's Degree too!  Before she worked at Gymnastics Inc she used to work with many professional football teams and players.  Miss Kendall taught us how important it is for us to stretch before we exercise and she even lead us in some stretching.  She also showed us how she wraps up injuries at Gymnastics Inc too!  It was so great meeting Miss Kendall!

Ashleigh modeling a wrapped wrist.

Listening very carefully to Miss Kendall's instructions!

All of us stretching our muscles.

Miss Kendall being silly!

Seslyn's Pop-Pop, Mr. Johnny Vereen

The class sitting on a bear surrounded by deer antlers.

The bear Mr. Vereen killed in Canada.

The turkey caller (that worked on calling the turkeys in our room too!)

Did Seslyn grow antlers?

Mr. Vereen teaching us about the color orange.

An antler filled group shot.

Silly faces!

Seslyn and her Pop-Pop!

I've never met a nicer hunter than Mr. Vereen.  Today we had so much fun getting to know Seslyn's Pop-Pop.  He is her mommy's daddy and he is from Conway.  He grew up in Conway and started coon hunting with his own grandfather when he was only 6 years old.  Mr. Vereen loves all kinds of hunting and fishing.  He has hunting dogs that he uses when he goes hunting (both coon and squirrel dogs).  He and Seslyn enjoy taking walks in the woods and looking for turtle shells.  Mr. Vereen has always enjoyed working on and selling cars and now that he is retired he spends most of his time enjoying the outdoors.  We all agreed that he has a great life filled with adventure.  Probably the thing we enjoyed the most about this special guest was that he brought a real bear with him that we all got to sit on and touch.  Mr. Vereen killed the bear with a bow and arrow during a trip to Canada and now he uses it as a rug.  If you have some little hunter's in your house now, you know why!

Pajama Day

I thought you might enjoy seeing all the kids in their PJ's.  They were so cute.  We had a fun day filled with The Polar Express and remembering the festivities of the season.

Team 100
Caleb, Ashleigh, Alec, and Madison P.

Team 200
Hailey, Kyle, Annette, DJ, and Diana

Team 500
Madilynn, Ethan, Marcus, Millie, and Kaylan

Team 400
Madison W., Jayden, Brylee, Jammie, and Alayna

Team 300
Nicky, Tiara, and Seslyn

Mrs. Costner's Special Guest, Mrs. Carolyn Ito

Kaylan showing a stained glass boy that was Mrs. Ito's mothers.

Tuesday was a very special day for Mrs. Costner because she got to invite her special guest to come and spend the day with us.  The class was so excited on Monday when I told them who would be coming the next day.  My mom was able to come and spend a few hours with us and during that time the class interviewed her.  Mrs. Ito is from Williamsburg, Virginia where she lives and enjoys retired life after spending 32 years in education.  She has taught children and adults of all ages from preschool to college level.  She spent quite a bit of time sharing some of her hobbies with us!  My mom is a very talented quilter and she taught us all about the many tools that she uses while she is making a quilt.  We also learned a little more about the 2 quilts she had made for our classroom and the manatee quilt she made for our school that is in the front hallway.  Another one of her hobbies is making things out of stained glass.  She taught us the difference between opaque, transparent, and beveled glass.  She even gave us two beautiful glass pieces to hang in our classroom window.  Mrs. Ito loves to travel and she loves chocolate and she brought gold chocolate coins from around the world for us to enjoy (which we did!).  We were so interested in listening to her talk we didn't get to ask a lot of questions.  Caleb did get to ask her if Mrs. Costner was naughty as a child and luckily Mrs. Ito didn't give away all of my secrets.  It was a very special day for all of us!

DJ holding a piece of cut glass with copper around the outside.

A new quilt top that Mrs. Ito is working on.

Mrs. Ito showing a finished wall hanging quilt.

Nicky and a quilt ruler.



Mrs. Costner and her mom,  Mrs. Ito



Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you for spending so much time creating your beautiful turkey projects!  The children were so very proud of their work and were beaming as they shared their projects with the class.  Each one was unique and I love that you used your projects to spend time together.  I hope that you were also able to use them for your Thanksgiving table center piece.  I have also included a picture of our Thanksgiving Friendship Soup.  We had a messy (but exciting) time putting our soup together and watching it cook on Tuesday.  We were also thrilled to eat it and we went around and said what things or people we were going to give thanks for on Thanksgiving.  It was a special tradition that I always enjoy each year.  Thank you for sending in your items for the soup.

Some of our family turkeys!

A few more . . .

And a few more . . .

All of our beautiful turkeys!

Thanksgiving Friendship Soup!

Meet Caleb's Special Guest Mr. Michael McDonough

Caleb waiting for his dad to begin.

A CCU football that was signed by a favorite player.

Caleb and his daddy.

Saying "The Sun News" for our group shot.

Lots of silly faces!

Today we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Michael McDonough.  He was Caleb's special guest.  Mr. McDonough is from Ohio and he lived in both Toledo and Troy.  We found out that he is an identical twin and he also has a big brother too.  All 3 of the boy in his family have the initials MD!  Mr. McDonough's first job was picking corn at a farm and then he worked in a pet store which was good because he loves animals.  He came to Coastal Carolina for college because he really likes being around the water and being outside.  He has a Marine Science degree from Coastal and one of his favorite things to do is be out on the water in his boat.  He also loves going fishing with his friends and with Caleb.  Mr. McDonough works for our local newspaper, The Sun News.  He works in the advertising department and works with local car dealerships making their ads.  He and Caleb enjoy spending time together on the weekends and going to Coastal sporting events.  He also loves to go camping at Edisto Beach.  Since we have been talking about traditions and customs, Mr. McDonough shared that his family was from Hungary and that he can remember his grandmother making special cookies and decorations for the Christmas tree that were from Hungary.  It was so much spending our morning with you Mr. McDonough!

Annette's Story about Mr. McDonough

Madison P.'s story about Mr. McDonough