For most kids, Christmas is the highlight of the entire year. During my childhood, I remember feeling gloomy come January 1st knowing it would be another eleven months before the holiday season would return anew. No doubt many of our Room 15 kids will be feeling that way when they return sleepily to school on January 6th. I suspect it’ll be tough to win back their attention, but at least we’ve scheduled the week with some better-than-average lessons. We’ll start new Book Clubs on Monday: classic Roald Dahl books including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. Students will be expected to read about a tenth of their given book as homework reading each evening. We’re also introducing a new bank of vocab words, these around Shawn White’s snowboarding. We’re starting our Measurement and Geometry unit, which is more active and hands-on than most math activities. We’ll finally be preparing for our first trimester history exam with a big History Jeopardy competition. And we’ll be starting floor hockey in PE. Finally, kids will be receiving their Gold Cards. Gold Card holders receive special privileges (n that they’ve demonstrated the maturity to handle them). Students retain their Gold Cards by demonstrating excellent behavior, by being good citizens, and by completing their homework and assignments. Here’s the math homework for this week: Monday, Jan. 6th; Tuesday, Jan. 7th; Wednesday, Jan, 8th; Thursday, Jan. 9th; Friday, Jan. 10th.