Category: Holidays

Thanksgiving Activities That Keep You in Charge of Learning

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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-Thanksgiving season:

  • ASCII Art
  • Comics
  • Holiday Widget
  • Team Challenge
  • Thanksgiving Poll
  • Thinking Games
  • Themed

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. Holiday examples include this Thanksgiving pumpkin and these holiday bells. 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 or this one of the American Revolution. This is also a fun and authentic way for students to practice keyboarding.

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14 Apps and 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 (click for updated links):

  1. Berenstein Bears Give Thanks (app)
  2. Canadian Thanksgiving
  3. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
  4. 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.
  5. Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
  6. Thanksgiving Games
  7. Thanksgiving games and puzzles
  8. Thanksgiving games–Quia
  9. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
  10. Turkey Templates — activities in Google Slides

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

  1. A Holiday Card
  2. A Holiday Flier

For more, click here:

  • Thanksgiving ASCII Art
  • Comics
  • Countdown Clock for the Holiday
  • Team Challenge
  • Thanksgiving Poll

Here’s a gallery of some of the Thanksgiving/Holiday projects:

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How to Put Kindness in Your Classes

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World Kindness Day, celebrated on November 13th each year, promotes kindness across the globe and emphasizes compassion toward others. This day encourages us to look beyond boundaries, religions, and cultures, focusing instead on the simple act of being kind. Founded in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, it is observed in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates.

People celebrate World Kindness Day by performing acts of kindness like helping a neighbor, complimenting strangers, volunteering, or spreading messages of positivity and goodwill. Many schools, workplaces, and communities organize events to encourage people to cultivate empathy and generosity.

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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A Day to Remember Veterans

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As many of you know, I have two wonderful children–one a CDR in the Navy and one a SFC In the Army. I also have a long family history of relatives who fought for America. So today, I salute them and all others who have put their lives and dreams aside to support America’s values and principles. I can’t say it better than these videos:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHGGtSUckaA] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTKmjhJ1__o&fs=1&hl=en_US] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqUORIFV4I&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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

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. Carve-a-Pumpkin from Parents magazine – Resolute Digital, LLC (app)
  4. Enchanted Learning
  5. Halloween games, puzzles–clean, easy to understand website and few ads!
  6. Halloween Kahoot Games (video for teachers)
  7. Halloween Science
  8. Halloween Voice Transformer (app)
  9. Make A Zombie – Skunk Brothers GmbH (app)
  10. Meddybemps Spooky
  11. Pumpkin Patch Games
  12. 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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Autumn Websites

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  1. Autumn Facts for Kids
  2. Don’t “Leaf” Out Fall’s Most Valuable Lesson
  3. EEK! A Tree’s True Color
  4. Fall Bucket List For Families Printable
  5. Fall Crafts, Decorations, and Printouts
  6. Fall Books & Short Stories For Kids about Autumn
  7. Primary Games’ Fall Fun
  8. Science Made Simple: Why Do Leaves Change Color in Fall?
  9. Why Leaves Change Color

Click for an updated list (more…)

America, We Remember

9-11 Day has become Patriot Day here in America, but it doesn’t change its purpose: to show how much we love our country.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvsN0Id4LEg?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwcWVs4Eejg?si=nfBd6Unur6CmgiUH&start=35]

If you aren’t familiar with this terrorist attack, here’s a 2-minute overview:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uOn7xLYPbc?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9oPmD6XJD0?si=LBKrjDQzQnYmLey2] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TPgJSZf5Vw&w=420&h=315]

 

–Comments are closed to enjoy the day more completely.

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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, 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.

Happy Labor Day! Now Get to Work

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Monday, September 2nd, is America’s Labor Day. It was originally organized to celebrate labor association strengths and contributions to the United States economy. Now, it has become a day of rest, the traditional end of the summer, and a last chance to make trips or hold outdoor events.

Here are some wonderful websites that will generate organic conversations about The Day:

  1. Child Labor
  2. Cybraryman’s Labor Day page--comprehensive as is his way
  3. History of Labor Day–Movie
  4. Labor Day activities, games, drawings for kids
  5. Labor Day infographic
  6. Labor Day for Kids: Read-aloud book
  7. Labor Day’s Violent Beginnings
  8. PBS Kids: Labor Day
  9. Ten Labor Day Facts (from Forbes)
  10. Today in History (Labor Day)–from Library of Congress
  11. Why Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day–YT video
  12. Why do we celebrate Labor Day (from How Stuff Works)

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We Honor July 4th in America

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Like every year, I exuberantly celebrate America’s birthday. I’d say times are tough here in the US, but that seems to be true everywhere in the world. So, I won’t complain. I will enjoy the love of America as all of my international friends love their homeland.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke4gRMowvQg]

 

This one–Chris Stapleton–4 Million views since Super Bowl 2023:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcs6HLKz_aQ]

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4OsP4BsATw]

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4kJ9sMDhaY]

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ds3MvMUdNk]

 

Here’s the feel-good video for all patriots. If you missed this viral video from the Navy Women’s Lacrosse team, enjoy!

https://youtube.com/shorts/u-dsWFOiOIg?si=cKUCB-4A082Uo4zb

 

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memorial day

Happy Memorial Day!

 1 Comment on Happy Memorial Day!

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…)