There is an ancient Chinese belief which states that there is an invisible red thread that connects each of us to all of the individuals who have been, currently are, and will in the future be important to us in our lives.
This red thread can stretch, twist, and bend… but will never break.
Whenever I have my students build gingerbread houses at school, I always save some of the leftover supplies for Katie to make a gingerbread house at home. She loves making them!
All of my supplies were laid out, and I was ready to go!
First, I had to add frosting to the sides of my house.
Then it was time to add the sides.
Once the sides and roof were on, I started adding the details.
I knew I wanted M&Ms on the rooftop.
I added some Red Hots to the other side.
I was liking what I saw!
I had some little gingerbread men than I placed under the eaves.
Doesn't it look cute up there?
Then I began to add more landscaping...trees, snowmen, and more.
It was a little sticky but worth it!
I wanted some sort of sidewalk, and licorice did the trick.
I loved the end result! Here is the back, and...
...here is the front!
I told my mom what my favorite parts were. First, I liked the snowman in front that I made a scarf for, so he would be warm.
I also liked the tall marshmallow Santa Claus I added to the roof.
Finally, I liked my snowman with a Hershey Kiss hat. I had fun!
A couple of weeks before Christmas, Katie's observation dance classes began. Those are the classes where family is invited into the dance studio to observe a shortened dance class. After the class, there are holiday-themed snacks in the lobby. It's always exciting for the kids.
Katie was funny during her Lyrical/Acro class. Every time she'd catch my eye, she'd look the other direction. I asked her about it later, and she told me she was nervous to have people watching her, so we went over some good tricks to make it seem like you're looking at your audience even if you're not.
At the beginning of our class, we help Ms. Moriah put out our tumbling mats.
Then we warm up. We start by running around the mats.
We do some skipping,...
...some walking on our toes, trying to stand up straight,...
...and we walk on our heels.
After that, we do things on the mat. We have to jump in the air, and then...
...roll on our back and repeat.
We also do lots of stretches like this one where I touch my head to my toes.
We practice bridges too.
After our warm-ups, we each have a turn doing exercises down the mat. I was working on cartwheels here!
These are my somersaults.
This is my bridge again, and I'm just learning how to walk in this position, so Ms. Moriah is helping me. Some of the girls can already walk in bridge position to the other end of the mat!
It's also important to work on flexibility by doing the splits. They aren't my favorite thing, but I keep trying!
We practice splits in both positions.
After that, we had a partner and we practiced moving across the room in different ways. Here, we had to kick our legs up while keeping the rest of our body as straight as we could.
Then we have to do the opposite by kicking our legs back behind us and walking backwards.
We also practice our dance leaps.
After that, we went to the barre to practice our C jumps.
The goal is to jump high and put our heads and feet behind us, so our bodies make the letter c.
