Category: Holidays

In the USA, Veterans Day annually falls on November 11. This day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. Veterans are thanked for their services to the United States on Veterans Day.

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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:

1. Canadian Thanksgiving
2. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
3. 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.
4. Starfall–Silly Turkey
5. Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
6. Thanksgiving Games
7. Thanksgiving games and puzzles
8. Thanksgiving games–Quia
9. Thanksgiving information–history, more
10. Thanksgiving Jigsaw
11. Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
12. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
13. Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
14. Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
15. Thanksgiving Wordsearch
16. The First Thanksgiving

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Two holiday projects for grades 2-8–for Thanksgiving or Christmas–in the desktop publishing tool of your choice:

• A flier to celebrate a holiday event
• A greeting card to spread wishes for a happy holiday season (more…)

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 you for Halloween projects, lesson plans, websites, apps:

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  (with Publisher)
5. A Holiday flier

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Labor Day is annually held on the first Monday of September (this year, September 2nd). 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.

Today, I honor the warrior, his job to fight for America’s way of life, invisibly and heroically, across the globe.

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It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. I have an Army son heading off overseas and a Navy daughter doing her thing stateside. I’m toasting both of them today!What I write today will be… anything I want–gibberish, a short story, guest articles on crazy topics. I have no idea. My son’s in Kuwait protecting America’s distant shores. My daughter’s in San Diego preparing her LPD for some future battle. I’m here, thanking both of them and every other service member who accepted the calling to protect our nation’s freedoms.

For all of America’s warriors, God be with you.

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I’m taking the 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 is the time we remember all of those soldiers (and anyone in the Armed Forces) 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:

1. Folding the American flag
2. In Flanders Field--poem
3. Memorial Day Messages, Speeches, Oaths, Poems, Anthems, and images
4. Memorial Day Poems
5. Memorial Day Poetry–poems
6. Memorial Day Prayer
7. Memorial Day puzzle I
8. Memorial Day Puzzle II
9. Memorial Day DigitPuzzle
10. Memorial Day Quiz
11. Memorial Day Word Search
12. Primary source recollections of War
13. Quotes about Memorial Day/Wars
14. Remember our Warriors
15. Who you are remembering–Americans killed in action

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As many of you know, I have a daughter in the Navy and a son in the Army. I love them both and live every day worried. But through it all, I appreciate what they are doing to make America what so many need it to be.

I love America. I love our military. I love my daughter and son.

You don’t have to watch all of these. I got carried away on YouTube. I just couldn’t pick a favorite…

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And the ever-favorite (17 million views):

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Earth Day is April 22nd. Someone in your school, maybe the parent group, will raise the question of WHY NOT a paperless classroom? Everyone will nod their heads, agree this is a revolutionary idea, and move on when Earth Day passes.

Really, though: There are benefits to adopting web-based alternatives to paper:

• it’s easy to collaborate when everything’s online
• nothing gets soda dripped on it or eaten by the dog
• students can easily collaborate without requiring parent time and gas fumes
• teachers can answer questions in a timely manner
• teachers can provide feedback on projects that students respond to and resubmit
• student work is easy to copy, backup, and share as needed

To kickstart your paperless digital classroom requires a modicum of preparation. Take a few weekends this summer to set up a class blog and class website and get comfortable with the digital side of your school. This may include:

• Google Apps for Education and/or Google Classroom–this serves as a basic digital portfolio for students, a collaborative tool with classmates, the teacher’s inbox and her tool for returning graded and analyzed student work.
• an LMS like Edmodo, Otus, or MyBigCampus–these often include an interactive gradebook, parent inclusion devices, a student discussion forum, polls, a way to collect and share resources, a class calendar, and access across a variety of digital devices.
• digital portfolios for students–this can be accomplished with whatever LMS you use, Google Apps, Google Classroom, or even Dropbox

Three pieces that you especially want to look for:

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