Category: Holidays

I was going to update this list from last year but when I checked around, my fellow teachers had the same holiday wishes, just tweaked for current circumstances:

Holiday gifts for teachers are a challenge. If your child has many teachers, it’s difficult to find a personalized gift for each that is both affordable and valued. For me, as a teacher, I am always happy with a gift certificate that works anywhere but there are time-proven ways to get more creative than a gift that sounds like “money”.

When I chat with teacher friends, here are the most popular gifts they’ve gotten over the years. Many are free and others allow you to spend only what you can afford while still giving a gift the teacher will love.

Most popular gifts

The suggestions below provide ample choices of gifts for your child’s teacher regardless of how well you know them.

Compliments to the Administration

Happy parents often forget to share their joy with the teachers’ administrators. Too often, Principals hear from parents only when they’re angry about the teacher or some class activity. Providing unsolicited good news about the teacher’s effectiveness is a wonderful treat for both the teacher and the school’s administrators.

A Thank You Letter

Handwrite a note to the teacher telling them how much you and your child appreciate what they do. There’s little more valuable to a teacher than the acknowledgment from stakeholders that their efforts are appreciated.

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8Teaching the days before big holidays is challenging. Students and teachers alike are ready for a break. Both struggle to pay attention regardless of how innovative and engaging are the lesson plans.

I’ve been there often. As a result, I’ve come up with fun ways to support learning while students power through the last few days of school. Here are seven I use during the pre-holiday season:

ASCII Art

Time required: Less than one class

ASCII Art is the graphic design technique of creating images by typing the letters, numbers, and symbols defined by ASCII Standards. Here’s how you do it:

1. Open your word processing program (MS Word, Google Docs, or another).
2. Add a watermark of a picture you’d like to use, preferably a single image rather than one that includes a background. Silhouettes are perfect for this sort of project.
3. Type over the image with the letters, symbols, and numbers that best fit the outline. It’s fine to use one letter throughout (like an X).
4. Add color by highlighting the letters, numbers, and symbols typed over the parts you’d like colored (such as the stem of a pumpkin or the bow on Christmas bells in the linked samples above).
5. When you’ve covered the image with characters, delete the watermark. That leaves just your typing.
6. Save, print, share, publish as is customary in your classes.

Tie-ins: Use this not only for holidays but any academic class by creating an artistic image of the topic being discussed. Click the link for an example of Abraham Lincoln to align with study of the American Civil War. This is also a fun and authentic way for students to practice keyboarding.

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I’m taking the next few weeks off. I’ll be preparing for…

I’ll be back November 30th.

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[caption id="attachment_59874" align="alignright" width="300"] Image credit: https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/[/caption]

World Kindness Day 11/13

Kindness isn’t a natural instinct. In the continuum of nature vs. nurture, it’s well on the side of nurture. Kids aren’t born knowing the part community and friendship play in their lives. They learn this from family, friends, schoolmates, and life in general.

That means, among the topics that must be covered in school, kindness may be the most important.

What is kindness?

Kindness is exactly what it sounds like — being friendly, generous, and considerate to others whether or not you think they deserve it. It’s not a payoff to someone who treated you well; it’s an attitude that seeps into every action in a person’s life.

It’s interesting that some variation of “kindness” is included in most non-academic measures of what students should learn in school, including Habits of Mind, a Growth Mindset, and Mindfulness (click links for further discussion).

Why is it important?

Kids learn by example. It’s unfortunate to note that some don’t see kindness in their homes. What they experience instead, they may think is the norm until you — their trusted teacher — shows them otherwise. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You must always have your antenna up, noticing when you need to intervene to tweak actions. This could be gossip, mean words, (cyber)bullying, or even speech that is accepted by most because “doesn’t everyone think this way”.  Your job isn’t to stop whatever is going on but redirect and explain so students learn why what they’re doing isn’t kind.

Why teach this in school, you ask? The quick answer is that students spend half their waking hours in or around school. It has a huge impact on how they view their world and their lives. But it’s more than that. Establishing a kind school culture resonates in all parts of a child’s life:

“Positive school climate has been empirically linked to a number of favorable outcomes, notably, the promotion of feelings of safety; establishing and maintaining healthy relationships, reductions in misbehavior, increases in students’ academic, emotional, and behavioral success at school; teaching that is engaging and promotes learning, and improvements in the overall quality of schools.” (Measuring Kindness in School, John Tyler Binfet, 2015)

In short, if students see kindness modeled in school, they are more likely to duplicate that in their own lives and activities.

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Three holidays are fast-approaching–Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. If you’re a teacher, that means lots of tie-ins to make school festive and relevant to students.

Here are ideas for Halloween projects, lesson plans, websites, and apps (check here for updated links):

Websites and Apps

1. 30-day Halloween fitness challenge
2. Build a Jack-o-lantern (in Google Slides)
3. Carving Pumpkins
4. Carve-a-Pumpkin from Parents magazine – Resolute Digital, LLC (app)
5. Enchanted Learning
6. Halloween games, puzzles–clean, easy to understand website and few ads!
7. Halloween ghost stories
8. Halloween counting & words games – IKIDSPAD LLC (app)
9. Halloween Kahoot Games (video for teachers)
10. Halloween Science
11. Halloween WordSearch – FinBlade (app)
12. Halloween Voice Transformer (app)
13. Landon’s Pumpkins – LAZ Reader [Level P–second grade] – Language Technologies, Inc. (app)
14. Make A Zombie – Skunk Brothers GmbH (app)
15. Math vs. Zombies (app)
16. Meddybemps Spooky
17. Readwords reading collection for Halloween
18. Readworks Halloween Reading Resources
19. Signing Halloween–a video
20. Skelton Park
21. The Kidz Page
22. WordSearch Halloween – AFKSoft (app)

Projects

1. ASCII Art–Computer Art for Everyone (a pumpkin–see inset)
2. Lesson Plan: Halloween letter for grades 2-5
3. Make a Holiday Card
4. A Holiday Card
5. A Holiday flier

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Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is an American holiday (though with different names throughout the world) dedicated to the achievements of American workers. Take today to think about it. Me, I’ll take it literally–labor! A keyboard, three screens, four tasks, and a six-pack of Red Bull. I’m ready!

This post is for Teacher-Authors:

If you’re devoting Labor Day to your writing but need a kick start, last year I posted Wrong Hands plot generator matrice. OK, I know it says ‘Christmas Movie’ but it works just as well for writing:

I thought I’d update this year and was surprised how many plot generators are out there:

OK, seriously, if you’re writing today, maybe you’re doing it on your iPad, so it’ll be more versatile, more portable. Here are some suggestions to make that easier:

• Double-tap the space bar to add a period.
• Double-tap the shift key to turn on CAPS LOCK.
• Double-tap the Home button to bring up all open apps.
• Place two fingers in the middle of the iPad keyboard and flick them to the side. This will split the keyboard making it easier to ‘thumb’ the keys (see inset—notice the half-keyboards on either side of the image).

• Shake the iPad to undo the last word you typed.
• Four-finger swipe in either direction to change apps.
• Five-finger pinch to return to the Home screen.
• Long-hold the period key to bring up extension options (.com, .net, and more). This doesn’t work in all applications.
• Long-hold many keys to get additional options. For example, long-hold the $ for other money symbols.
• Long-hold the Home button to bring up Siri.
• As you type, let the iPad correct your spelling and complete words.

That’s all I’ve got! Have a great holiday!

More on Labor Day (for Teacher-Authors)

Labor Day: Be a Writer?

No Labor Day Break for Me!

Labor Day Thoughts: Do You Really Want Your Job to be ‘Writer’?

How to Write a Book on Labor Day

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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. My Army Sergeant son is in Japan–Okinawa. My Navy LT CDR daughter’s in the DC area. I thank both of them and all those soldiers who fought for America’s uncertain future so long ago.

God be with all of us.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDkP2WaEYFE&w=560&h=349] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJvcJczKRB0&w=425&h=349] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUDs-8SxfUE&w=425&h=349] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E&w=425&h=349]

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I want to include all my efriends from Canada in the celebrations though I’m a few days late for Canada Day:

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I’m taking Memorial Day to honor our soldiers. Hang the American flag and call my two soldier children. Say hi, how are you. When are you coming home to visit? (more…)

Memorial Day (May 25, 2020) is the time we remember soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of American freedom. In war and peace, they made the ultimate sacrifice and because of them we are privileged to live the American Dream.

Once a year, we honor them, their sacrifice, and those they left behind. Here are some activities to help students understand the import of this day (check here for updates on links):

1. Difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day
2. Folding the American flag
3. History of Memorial Day–video
4. In Flanders Field--poem
5. Meaning of Memorial Day–video
6. Memorial Day DigitPuzzle
7. Memorial Day puzzle I
8. Memorial Day Puzzle II
9. Memorial Day: Remember Me — video
10. Poems
11. Poetry
12. Prayer
13. Primary source recollections of War
14. Quiz
15. Quotes about Memorial Day/Wars
16. Who you are remembering–Americans killed in action
17. Word Search

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Many Americans celebrate Armed Forces Day annually on the third Saturday of May. It is a day to pay tribute to men and women who serve the United States’ armed forces. Armed Forces Day is also part of Armed Forces Week, which begins on the second Saturday of May.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyKfr8G04Qc&w=560&h=315] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI-_wAX1tV8&w=560&h=315]