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Mrs. O'Gara

- Welcome to Nursery!
  
  In our Nursery class at Saint Aidan, the students will experience learning in a safe, loving, child-centered environment, based on Catholic values. The program aims to develop readiness skills, social interaction, a love of learning, and compassion for others. The children will be introduced to parental separation, learning our class routines, songs, making friends, sharing, art projects, and listening to stories. Our day also includes music and movement, free play, prayer, and activities that develop both fine and gross motor skills. As the year progresses, the children will work on recognizing their printed name, letters, colors, shapes, and numbers. Catholic values are incorporated into our curriculum through books, daily prayer, celebration, and discussion of holidays.
- Nursery 2 Daily News
- Welcome to our class page
  
  Nursery 2
  2022-2023
- January 27, 2023
- Puzzle day. The children are getting very good at putting together the more difficult puzzles. Time to get some new ones!
- The special helper was so excited that it was his turn today, and he loved seeing his name on the board!
- We painted some colorful winter hats to hang up in the hallway.
- The children love that they can be helpful and dump their own paint water out.
- Some sweet playtime moments from today.
- January 25, 2023
- Today we did some block building in the morning while we unpacked and got ready for the day.
- Our special helper collecting the name tags, holding the flag, and marking the day off on the calendar.
- We really enjoyed making our snowpeople! Our favorite part was choosing the buttons. The button box was very interesting to the children and many of them lingered long after completing their snowmen to sort them, sift through them, and show me the "fancy" ones!
- Lunchtime conversation
- January 23, 2023
- Happy Monday! We began our day with manipulatives. The children were so excited to see one another, and were very chatty. These girls were pretending to build snowmen.
- Here is our excellent special helper today!
- Here he is double checking that the pattern is correct for today.
- A fun bear color sorting activity. The children were very excited to work independently, and correct any mistakes on their own.
- Once we had the bears all sorted out, we learned how a balance scale works and took guesses as to which color would be the heaviest. We tested our guesses by weighing each group and then put them in order.
- Happy birthday to our friend. Four is a great number!
- Some birthday cake making in the kitchen.
- We finally finished all of our snowflake paintings. Next up, are SNOWMEN! If only we had some real snow.
- January 20, 2023
- Friday mornings are for puzzles, and putting them together with friends is always more fun!
- Here was today's special helper doing some of her morning jobs.
- We are still working on our masking tape snowflakes. There are just a few more to do, but we like going slowly and taking our time. Everyone loves to help mix the colors!
- Play-doh time! Today we used letter stampers. There was a lot of concentrating when trying to find and stamp the letters in our names.
- January 18, 2023
- Morning manipulatives for Nursery 2!
- Here is our special helper during circle time.
- We are working on alphabet recognition with a matching game. We also did letter sounds. It was fun to help one another.
- We have been learning about the different animals that hibernate.
- Along with talking about hibernation, the children made their own brown bears to put in a "cave" for a long winter's nap. We will be marking the days on a calendar until spring arrives and our sweet bears will come out.
- A little conversation between bear friends!
- Here we are setting the table for lunch. Everyone pitched in to get it ready. There is nothing more the children like than to feel helpful and appreciated.
- January 13, 2023
- Friday is puzzle day!
- Our special helper of the day.
- Everyone loves the parachute, especially the special helper because they get a special ride!
- Week of December 12th
- Monday morning manipulatives.
- Here is our special helper helping us get ready for morning circle time.
- We loved choosing glitter for the ornaments for our Christmas tree.
- Week of December 5th
- We began morning puzzle time in September with a puzzle placed at each seat on the tables, and the children would trade puzzles when they were done. However, over time the children began to want to help one another. On this day, they were working all over the room in groups. The conversations were so much fun to listen to. They have really come together as a class!
- Morning manipulatives!
- The children are always so excited when they are chosen to be the special helper.
- We practiced number recognition and one to one correspondance. There was block building challenge and squeals of laughter when it toppled and we had to start again..
- Nursery 2 is hard at work creating beautiful Christmas decorations for our classroom.
- Playtime fun this week.
- Friday, November 18, 2022
  
  Our very eager special helper today!
- As we continue talking about squares this week, we looked carefully at the photograph in the book, "So Many Circles, So Many Squares," by Tana Hoban. We then used paper squares to make collages.
- Music with Miss Reagan today was so much fun. She gave out instruments and we marched around the room to "We Are the Dinosaurs."
- Wednesday
  
  November 16, 2022
  
  Look at our special helper hard at work.
- Today we talked about the properties of squares, found squares around the classroom, and looked closely at the photographs in the book, "So Many Circles, So Many Squares," by Tana Hoban. We practiced making our own squares using popsicle sticks
- Monday,
  
  November 14, 2022
  
  Everyone was happy to see their friends after our long weekend. Our special helper was happy to be chosen today, and very excited to be the leader at circle time.
- Wednesday,
  
  november 9, 2022
  
  It was a very busy morning for our special helper today.
- We worked on the letter F this week. Here we are reviewing the letters we have learned using magnets for a matching activity. Making sure we named the letter, matched it to the written letter and made sure it was facing in the right direction. The children all clapped for one another!
- Another sunny day to have fun on the playground. We are making sure to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather before it gets COLD! We love exploring and talking about all that we find outside.
- A funny little spotted frog and fly craft for the letter F.
- Monday, November 7, 2022
- Here is the special helper doing his morning jobs!
- We had beautiful weather for some playground fun!
- We read the book "Scaredycrow," and made our own fun Scarecrows. We loved stuffing them!
- friday,
  
  November 4, 2022
- The children are learning quickly that clean up time is more fun when everyone works together. Here they are figuring it all out.
- We began painting pumpkins! When they are dry we will turn them into jack-o-lanterns.
- Getting started with our parachute went great! There was a lot of laughing.
- Today we started to learn about each other. We talked about birthdays; how important they are, and how we celebrate them. We talked about when we were babies (they loved this part).Here we are putting candles on the make believe cake. This is put in the play kitchen every time we celebrate a birtday in class. The children love to throw a party at playtime.
- It was a beautiful day to play outside. The children were so excited to visit the playground.
- Inside, we finally got to play with all of the toys!
  
  We also painted our birthday crowns.
- Monday, September 12, 2022
- We had a wonderful first day together! We read the book, "Seven Little Mice Go to School." The children loved the snake sock puppet that was in our story basket.
- Snooze the bear came out of his log and made an appearance. He was a big hit. He cried when it was time to back in, but promptly stopped when the children agreed to come back. So sweet! I think it is going to be a great year.
- Today, we water colored some turkeys. Painting is definitely one of their favorite table time activities.
- Welcome back everyone! The children were all so happy to see one another again, and had a lot to talk about. We got right back into the swing of things and the special helper did a great job collecting the name tags, holding the flag, and marking off the date on the calendar.
- A busy week full of holiday projects and a lot of practice following directions. We made an angel, a Christmas tree, a manger scene, Rudolph and a candy cane too!
- Spirit week was so much fun, and the best was when we got to wear our pajamas. We got to see our tree lights get turned on, and we sang songs too!
- We sang some fun songs with our shaky eggs.
- There was time for play-doh too!
- As important as routine is in nursery, there are times when we need to break routine when things don't go as planned, in order to recognize the need of a student, or when something seems very important to a little one. Today it was needing to wrap the baby doll up just right, hold it tight, and bring it to the table for lunch (highchair and all). As young as they are, these children have tremendous capacity to love and care for one another. They watch everything we do!
- We reviewed our letters today with a game of memory using paper plates and then all took a turn trying to hit letters with the ball.
- Monday, February 10, 2020
- A parachute "clubhouse" is so much fun, and a great place to read books with your friends. "No grown-ups allowed," we were told!
- Not all children are fans of the parachute, so this week we did some unique parachute activities that everyone LOVED! The children did some block sorting on the parachute. It was interesting to watch them make corrections when they found a stray block. More, less, shapes, colors - we got it all in with this simple activity.
- Today we celebrated Charlotte and Ellie's birthday. Mr. and Mrs. Traina came in to read the book "Birthday Monsters," by Sandra Boynton. A perfect book since we are working on the letter M. We painted monster paper bag puppets also. They will come home on Wednesday after we use them to act out some funny monster stories!
- Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you on Monday!
- It was a beautiful day so, after lunch and reading time, we went out to play and had so much fun! It definitely did not feel like a winter day in February!
- One of my favorite moments of the week. A quiet moment in the flurry of free play. One student quietly reading to a friend and another stopping by to listen.
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- Contact Us
  
  O'Gara, Christine
  
  Nursery Teacher
  
  cogara5547staidanschool.org
  Website
- Documents
  
  Nursery 2 Orientation Packet
  
  October 2019 Newsletter
- We have been reading and talking about hibernation. We even made our own brown bears! Today we put them in their "den" to hibernate until the spring. We will check each day off on the calendar until spring arrives.
- Wednesday, January 15, 2020
- Week of October 25-29
- We started our day with puzzles!
- The special helper was very happy to do the morning jobs: collecting the tags, holding the flag, labeling the weather, and counting on the calendar.
- There was a lot going on in the kitchen at playtime today!
- A new job has been added for the special helper! We are crossing off the days until spring arrives and our bears come out of hibernation.
- The weather was so wonderful today that we decided to go out to play in the afternoon. When we told the children, they let out a big cheer. Rest time was much more restful after they had the chance to run and play.
- The special helper has many jobs. Collecting the nametags is the first job of the day.
- The mornings are for building and making things together at the tables. A house for a spider, and a colorful birthday cake!
- We have decorated the classroom with things that the children have made and it looks beautiful! They love looking at their work and talking about it. Sitting at the art table is a nice time to get to talk to the children one on one.
- Playtime with friends is so much fun. This week we welcomed a new friend to our class!
- May 17 - May 21
- Play-doh fun!
- May 10 - May 14
- Our busy special helpers this week. Look at all of the jobs they did!
- We had so much fun going to the St. Aidan pumpkin patch this week. The children were excited to pick out the perfect pumpkin. It was a windy, windy day!
- Some bowling fun in the afternoon. This is one of their favorite activities.
- We loved the book fair. Thank you to Mrs. Serrano, our school librarian and to all the moms that helped us shop.
- Finishing our letter V project:
- Some morning fun this week:
- Fun with crayons, paper and stickers!
- The playground on a beautiful sunny day!
- It was a beautiful day for the Walk-A-Thon! Thank you to all who joined us. The ice pops were delicious!
- Here are our special helpers this week doing their jobs:
- This week we learned all about the letter V, but first we had to finish our letter U craft. U is for Unicorn. The children all loved the pink glitter! Making the gluey triangle horn, scooping the glitter out and sprinkling it on, pouring the extra off - they loved it all!
- Playground fun!
- Who needs toys when you have a bunch of empty chairs? Spontaneous playtime fun - an airplane ride with a seat for everyone. The baby dolls even came along on the trip. The hardest part was waiting for a turn to be the pilot! Goodbye everyone. We're taking off!
- There is nothing better than getting to see your big brother at school and getting a hug.
- Cleaning up with friends always makes the job easier.
- Manipulative time this morning!
- Week of April 12-April 17
- Welcome back to everyone! It was so exciting for the children to be back with their Nursery friends. We got right back into our routine and had a great week. Here are some pictures of the special helpers this week:
- Monday, December 2, 2019
- We have been focusing on the spring and talking about the weather a lot. The April showers had us painting colorful umbrellas this week. They look beautiful hanging up outside the classroom.
- Here is the special helper of the day collecting the nametags, holding the flag and counting on the calendar.
- We were very busy today making our Advent wreathes and painting Christmas trees to hang up in the classroom.
- R was our letter of the week. Here we are coloring the Rainbow Fish and adding glitter to make one of his shiny scales.
- There was a lot of cooperative play happening in the classroom this week. From fixing broken things to making a meal together - this type of play encourages conversation, listening skills, taking turns, and best of all stretching the imagination!
- We added trains to the classroom this week and they were a big hit!
- We were lucky enough to get out to play this week when the weather cooperated.
- When it was too wet to play outside, we did fun things inside. Here we are bowling and cheering one another on.
- I will see you all on Monday!
- Wednesday, December 11, 2019
- There were puzzles to begin our day today. We love to watch them work together.
- Here is the special helper collecting the nametags, holding the flag and counting on the calendar.
- Play time is the best time to make friends. All of the children are making connections with their peers now. They are learning how to negotiate sharing, taking turns and expressing how they feel (both positive and negative). It is very interesting to watch how they come to the rescue when they see a friend having difficulty. It doesn't always go smoothly, but they have come so far in such a short time. This is hard work!
- It was wonderful to watch the children's faces, and hear them sing during our lower school tree lighting. One of the children walked past the unlit tree last week and said, "Google, turn the tree lights on," and now it has happened! They really do make us laugh every day.
- We began the day with block building.
- We had a very enthusiastic special helper today who was very excited for it to be her turn.
- Today we read the story of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," retold by Janet Stevens. We used blocks and our play animals to act the story out.
- It was a great morning to play outside. We were running, hanging, sliding, jumping and a few were trying to wake up a princess!
- Some free play after snack!
- Playtime was busy. The children were cooking for Mrs. Amarain, and there was a lot of laughing. Mrs. Amarain loves everything the children make even though they tell her there are hot peppers in everything!
- We had a fix-it crew working on the lockers today. They were loud but, the crew assured me that they all work right now. So much fun.
  
  We had a great day! I will see you all on Wednesday.
- April 26-April 30
- We had awonderful time on the playground this week.
- Mixing paint for the most special project.
- "Writing letters" is one of our new favorite playtime activities.
- Finishing our caterpillars.
- Here are our special helpers for the week!
- The mornings are for playing and building together! It is one of our favorite parts of the day.
- Counting fuzzy caterpillars. We love this song!
- This week we read the book, "Fall Ball," and talked about all of the changes we see in autumn. We practiced raking and bagging some leaves up, and began painting our own leaves to decorate our painting board with.
  "The month is November, the leaves falling down. The colors are crimson, and golden, and brown," is the song we sing at circle time.
- Lunchtime!
- We used Q-Tips to make the leaves on a bare tree. The children thought that the leaves looked nicer when we swirled the colors together!
- The weather cooperated and we had so much fun outside this week!
- Playtime fun
- We had so much fun learning about the letter O this week. We read several books about ocean animals and did many ocean themed activities.
- D is for dinosaur. We read dinosaur books, sang a dinosaur song, and played with dinosaurs this week. It was so much fun!
- It was a group effort to put the ocean puzzle together, and everyone that helped was very proud at the job they had done.
- We did our best to find ocean animal toys that matched the ones in the puzzle.
- We used different shades of blue to make an ocean scene. It was fun mixing and swirling the paint colors together. When it was all dry we glued little fish to it. Our favorite part was drawing on the happy faces!
- We did a little fishing in the afternoon while we waited for our friends to finish resting.
- The best part of this busy week was that we were able to go to our little playground again! The snow has melted and the weather was beautiful!
- Monday, February 3, 2020
- A traffic director and a bouquet of pretty flowers!
- We celebrated a birthday this week and it was double the fun!
- Welcome February! Our busy day began with manipulatives with patterning, sorting and gear assembly.
- We read the book, "Go to Sleep Groundhog!" by Judy Cox and then made cute groundhog paperbag puppets.
March 8-12
- We introduced the new month and all of the special days. Today we talked about Groundhog's Day. No shadow and, an early spring proclaimed Punxsutawney Phil! Here is our special helper.
- In the afternoon we played with shaving cream! A messy, but fun sensory activity. The children had as much fun helping to clean up as they did playing with the shaving cream.
- Wednesday, November 4, 2020
- We started the day with manipulatives!
- We read the book "Fall Ball," by Peter McCarty. We loved the funny pictures, and the dog who jumped into the leaves. We took turns raking up leaves on the classroom floor.
- It was a beautiful day to play outside.
- Here is our special helper for the day collecting the nametags, and holding the flag. He was very excited to help!
- We were very busy during play time today. The children had fun with Mrs. Amarain setting up a big picnic and they also spent time trying to "fix" our refrigerator. It was a good day. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday!
- Working on puzzles and building together.
- We have fun together on the playground even on cloudy days.
- We love watching our butterflies!
- We had so much fun painting our own wings to wear for our butterfly release.
- Here were our special helpers this week:
- Finally! The day has come to release our butterflies.
- May 3 - May 7
- Here we are finishing up our T is for tree project. Crumpling up all the paper was the best part.
- Happy Halloween!
  Aren't our jack-o-lanterns fantastic? We have had so much fun this week. Pumpkin picking, reading Halloween stories, dancing and playing fun Halloween games are just some of the activities we enjoyed.
- Monday, January 13, 2020
  Happy Hibernation to our Bears
- A new week has begun! We started today off with table manipulatives.
- Here is our special helper of the day collecting the nametags, holding the flag, and counting on the calendar.
- Although the weather has been unseasonably warm, we are still talking about winter weather and snow! Today we read a Nursery favorite, "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow," by . The children love "reading" the book themselves using the repetetive pictures.
- We then made winter trees. We made one of these back in the fall and we will do one for every season.
- We went out into the hall and had some fun racing on the scooters. It was exciting to cheer one another on. It is especially fun when the teacher and Mrs. O'Connell get in on the last race. How silly! There was a lot of cheering and laughing going on.
- Monday, November 4, 2019
- We read the book "Seven Little Mice Go to School," and used the items in our story basket to tell the story. Everyone loved the snake and making train tracks out of the yarn.
- Here is our terrific special helper today, collecting the nametags!
- What a wonderful first day we had today! Everyone was just a little bit nervous at first, but then settled down as soon as we got in the room and unpacked. The children had an opportunity to play with some of the toys while we made our handprints, and then everyone helped to clean up.
- We read a great book today called "Fall Ball," by Peter McCarty. The pictures were very funny and led to us talking about many things that the season of autumn brings such as windy days, blowing leaves that we rake into piles, the day getting dark earlier, cold frosty nights and football. The children loved the illustrations which are simple but evoke lots of expression and movement. So much to talk about today!
- We even practiced raking leaves into piles. It took a little practice, but we got the hang of it and are ready to help at home!
- We used Q-Tips and paint to add some colorful leaves on the tree branches, the ground and swirling in the air too.
- We marched around the room to The Train Song, and practiced making all sorts of train noises. We stopped to take a quick snack break before going home. It was a very good first day!
- Wednesday, October 30, 2019
- Here is our special helper today carefully collecting the name tags, holding the flag, and counting on the calendar at circle time.
- I will see you all on Monday. Have a wonderful weekend.
- Wednesday, November 13, 2019
- We began the day today with puzzles. Many of the children ask if they can move around to other tables to help friends do their puzzles. We really enjoy watching them socialize when they first arrive. We see students who like to do things independently, or who don't need help, accept help from a friend. This speaks volumes! Despite how young they are, they love feeling neeeded and they love to feel helpful.
- Here we are at the beginning of circle time!
- Here is the special helper today. She is collecting the name tags, holding the flag, and counting on the calendar.
- We read a funny book at story time called, "Scaredy Crow", and then began making our own scarecrows! We will finish them on Friday.
- We talked about positional words today, and watched Grover from Sesame Street explain them using a simple song. We then practiced acting out the words ourselves to the music. Everyone was laughing and really having so much fun.
- Through
- Around
- Under
- After lunch, we read books together on the rug. The goal is to get the children interested and excited to choose books that interest them. We want them to love reading. When they share a book they like with others, it is wonderful to listen to their conversations and watch their enthusiasm
- Friday, February 28, 2020
- How can you not be excited to come to school when this is how your buddies greet you in the morning?
  
  We had fun this morning with building blocks.
- As the day wound down and everyone was tired, we did some block building on the front rug. They built a zoo for the animals.
- Here is our special helper taking charge this morning.

Mrs. O'Gara

Welcome to Nursery!

Nursery 2 Daily News

Welcome to our class page

Nursery 2 2022-2023

January 27, 2023

Puzzle day. The children are getting very good at putting together the more difficult puzzles. Time to get some new ones!

The special helper was so excited that it was his turn today, and he loved seeing his name on the board!

We painted some colorful winter hats to hang up in the hallway.

The children love that they can be helpful and dump their own paint water out.

Some sweet playtime moments from today.

January 25, 2023

Today we did some block building in the morning while we unpacked and got ready for the day.

Our special helper collecting the name tags, holding the flag, and marking the day off on the calendar.

We really enjoyed making our snowpeople! Our favorite part was choosing the buttons. The button box was very interesting to the children and many of them lingered long after completing their snowmen to sort them, sift through them, and show me the "fancy" ones!

Lunchtime conversation

January 23, 2023

Happy Monday! We began our day with manipulatives. The children were so excited to see one another, and were very chatty. These girls were pretending to build snowmen.

Here is our excellent special helper today!

Here he is double checking that the pattern is correct for today.

A fun bear color sorting activity. The children were very excited to work independently, and correct any mistakes on their own.

Once we had the bears all sorted out, we learned how a balance scale works and took guesses as to which color would be the heaviest. We tested our guesses by weighing each group and then put them in order.

Happy birthday to our friend. Four is a great number!

Some birthday cake making in the kitchen.

We finally finished all of our snowflake paintings. Next up, are SNOWMEN! If only we had some real snow.

Friday mornings are for puzzles, and putting them together with friends is always more fun!

Here was today's special helper doing some of her morning jobs.

We are still working on our masking tape snowflakes. There are just a few more to do, but we like going slowly and taking our time. Everyone loves to help mix the colors!

Play-doh time! Today we used letter stampers. There was a lot of concentrating when trying to find and stamp the letters in our names.

January 18, 2023

Morning manipulatives for Nursery 2!

Here is our special helper during circle time.

We are working on alphabet recognition with a matching game. We also did letter sounds. It was fun to help one another.

We have been learning about the different animals that hibernate.

Along with talking about hibernation, the children made their own brown bears to put in a "cave" for a long winter's nap. We will be marking the days on a calendar until spring arrives and our sweet bears will come out.

A little conversation between bear friends!

Here we are setting the table for lunch. Everyone pitched in to get it ready. There is nothing more the children like than to feel helpful and appreciated.

January 13, 2023

Friday is puzzle day!

Our special helper of the day.

Everyone loves the parachute, especially the special helper because they get a special ride!

Week of December 12th

Monday morning manipulatives.

Here is our special helper helping us get ready for morning circle time.

We loved choosing glitter for the ornaments for our Christmas tree.

Week of December 5th

Morning manipulatives!

The children are always so excited when they are chosen to be the special helper.

We practiced number recognition and one to one correspondance. There was block building challenge and squeals of laughter when it toppled and we had to start again..

Nursery 2 is hard at work creating beautiful Christmas decorations for our classroom.

Playtime fun this week.

Friday, November 18, 2022

Our very eager special helper today!

As we continue talking about squares this week, we looked carefully at the photograph in the book, "So Many Circles, So Many Squares," by Tana Hoban. We then used paper squares to make collages.

Music with Miss Reagan today was so much fun. She gave out instruments and we marched around the room to "We Are the Dinosaurs."

Wednesday

November 16, 2022

Look at our special helper hard at work.

Today we talked about the properties of squares, found squares around the classroom, and looked closely at the photographs in the book, "So Many Circles, So Many Squares," by Tana Hoban. We practiced making our own squares using popsicle sticks

Monday,

November 14, 2022

Everyone was happy to see their friends after our long weekend. Our special helper was happy to be chosen today, and very excited to be the leader at circle time.

Wednesday,

november 9, 2022

It was a very busy morning for our special helper today.

We worked on the letter F this week. Here we are reviewing the letters we have learned using magnets for a matching activity. Making sure we named the letter, matched it to the written letter and made sure it was facing in the right direction. The children all clapped for one another!

Another sunny day to have fun on the playground. We are making sure to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather before it gets COLD! We love exploring and talking about all that we find outside.

A funny little spotted frog and fly craft for the letter F.

Monday, November 7, 2022

Here is the special helper doing his morning jobs!

We had beautiful weather for some playground fun!

We read the book "Scaredycrow," and made our own fun Scarecrows. We loved stuffing them!

friday,

November 4, 2022

The children are learning quickly that clean up time is more fun when everyone works together. Here they are figuring it all out.

We began painting pumpkins! When they are dry we will turn them into jack-o-lanterns.

Getting started with our parachute went great! There was a lot of laughing.

It was a beautiful day to play outside. The children were so excited to visit the playground.

Inside, we finally got to play with all of the toys! We also painted our birthday crowns.

Monday, September 12, 2022

Nursery 2
2022-2023

Inside, we finally got to play with all of the toys!

We also painted our birthday crowns.

Monday, January 13, 2020
Happy Hibernation to our Bears