Category: Holidays

See you January 3rd!

I’ll be taking a few weeks off–December 19-January 3rd–to edit/format my website, work on projects with a deadline, prioritize life, and wish my two adult military children could come home to visit. I may drop in on you-all as you enjoy your holidays, but mostly I’ll be regenerating.

I wish you a wonderful season, safe and filled with family.

See you in a few weeks!

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

http://eepurl.com/chNlYb

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Holiday Activities To Keep the Learning Going

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Teaching 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:

Open your word processing program (MS Word, Google Docs, or another).
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.
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).
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).
When you’ve covered the image with characters, delete the watermark. That leaves just your typing.
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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14 Holiday Websites and 9+ Projects

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Need a few websites to fill in free minutes? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

12 Days of Christmas
Christmas Celebrations Across the World (video)
Christmas puzzles and games
Christmas—history—fun video
Christmas Traditions Around the World (video)
Gift Hunt–updated version of 12 Days of Christmas–just as much fun
Holiday Crossword
Holiday Elf Games
Holiday Hangman II
Holiday music II–sing along with the music–the site provides the words
Holiday—Math Facts
Holiday—North Pole Academy
Phone call from Santa
Santa Tracker

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Have Santa Call Your Kids!

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DialMyCalls (an AATT sponsor) has a special Christmas offer for kids:

Free Santa Calls To Your Family This Christmas

This Christmas we have a great gift for everyone! Whether you’re an existing DialMyCalls user or not, you can take advantage of our completely free phone call from Santa. Imagine the look on your child’s face when they receive a personalized phone call from Santa with his or her name on it!

Simply select your child’s name and the message from Santa you want sent on this link.
Pick the time, date and phone number you want the call sent to.
We create a personalized message and send the call when you want it sent!
Each household can send up to 3 free calls from Santa Claus.
Additional Santa Calls may be purchased for a small fee.

What an amazing gift to any child for Christmas!

@DialMyCalls

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

http://eepurl.com/chNlYb

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Happy Thanksgiving Week to All!

I’m taking next week off. I’ll be preparing for my daughter’s holiday visit from her home in DC and my son who’s visiting virtually from Okinawa Japan. I am so excited to see both of them!

I’ll be back November 29th. Any emergencies–drop me a line at askatechteacher@gmail.com.

http://eepurl.com/chNlYb

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, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

16 Sites, 3 Apps, 2 Projects for Thanksgiving

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Need a few websites and apps to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving websites that will keep students busy and still teach them:

Berenstein Bears Give Thanks (app)
Canadian Thanksgiving
Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
Thanksgiving Games
Thanksgiving games and puzzles
Thanksgiving games–Quia
Thanksgiving information–history, more
Thanksgiving Jigsaw
Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
Thanksgiving Wordsearch
The First Thanksgiving
Turkey Templates — activities in Google Slides

If you’re an iPad school, try one of these:

Berenstein Bears Give Thanks
Primary Games–games, coloring books, more
Thanksgiving coloring book

If you’re looking for projects, you’ll find two on Ask a Tech Teacher:

For more, click here:

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Halloween Projects, Websites, Apps, Books, and a Costume

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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

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

Projects

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9/11… We Remember

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America, we love you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TPgJSZf5Vw&w=420&h=315]

Take a Break–it’s Labor Day!

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Labor Day is annually held on the first Monday of September (this year, September 6th). It was originally organized to celebrate various labor associations’ strengths of and contributions to the United States economy. It is largely a day of rest in modern times. Many people mark Labor Day as the end of the summer season and a last chance to make trips or hold outdoor events.

Labor Day is a US holiday dedicated to workers across the country. The public holiday always falls on the first Monday in September. The first federal observation of the holiday occurred in 1894 however the first Labor Day observed in a state was in Oregon in 1887.

Here are websites to help students understand what Labor Day means to them:

Teacher-Authors: Here’s a post from last year for you.

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Happy Independence Day!

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It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. My Army Staff Sergeant son is still in Japan–Okinawa. My Navy LT CDR daughter’s still in the DC area in the next of her long line of Navy jobs. They do not leave her in one position for long! I thank both of them and all those soldiers who fought for America’s uncertain future so long ago.