The photo above is a painting by Ruby F.
Día Reyes Magos
We started the 2025 celebrating our last Winter holiday. El Día de Reyes Magos. This holiday is celebrated in Spain, Mexico and many other Latin American countries, and is a continuation of Christmas in commemoration of the coming of the three Kings. Griselda shared with the class her own experience of growing up celebrating this holiday in Mexico. She learned from her parents and grandparents that when the three wise men heard that the special baby was born they made a long journey to express their love, respect, and brought presents for the child. They met the child on January 6th when he was about two weeks old.
On January 5th children in Mexico polish their shoes and place them by the window or door. During the night, the Reyes Magos–Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltazar–stuff the shoes with chocolates and leave toys and clothes. On January 6th the family bakes a ring shaped cake (rosca or roscón) with dried fruit and a small plastic baby doll in it. They make hot cocoa as well. They then get together with family and close friends and share the cake and hot cocoa. Each person cuts their own piece of cake and whoever gets the plastic baby doll in their piece has to host a tamales party for everybody on February 2nd, the Día de la Virgen de la Candelaria.
This year Esmeralda got the baby! She will bring treats on the Día de la Virgen de la Candelaria.
The children loved learning about Día de Reyes and enjoyed playing with the manger’s figures. They also made crowns that they loved wearing all day.
Cooking project
Rosca de Reyes was our cooking project. Luke, Arlo, Sofia, and Sasha had a blast mixing butter, eggs, sugar, juice, and flour. They also did a great job cleaning up and washing all the bowls and whisks.
Experimenting with paint
We started our semester by exploring colors. The children loved mixing paint and discovering new shades and colors. We begun mixing primary colors, and the students loved observing how they got the secondary colors. In the next project, we added white and we got the same excited reaction. It was a pleasure to see how much fun they had, and the results were beautiful!
Traveling scholars
Our students are enjoing visiting the Cedar classroom every Thursdays. These weeks, our travelers were Bea, Esmeralda, and Neela, and our visitors were Belle, Nico, Solomon and Leo.
Birthdays
Sasha turned three years old on January 1st! His parents joined our class to celebrate and share memories about Sasha’s three years of life.
New Live Oak students
We have been transitioning 2 students from Caterpillar into Live Oak, Felix and Bea. Next week, they will join us full time as Live Oak students! We will also receive 2 new students, Maren and Thomas. Maren is Marshall’s younger sister, a former Live Oak student, and Thomas is Adeline’s younger brother, also a former Live Oak student currently in Mariposa. We look forward to welcoming them!
Work period
After coming back from Winter Break, everybody was eager to choose work and activities in the classroom. All the students kept themselves entertained working on their own or with a friend, and were really engaged in their tasks.
Live Oak Teachers