Category: Holidays
14 Holiday Websites and 5 Projects
Need a few websites to fill in free minutes? Here are holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them (click for updates to list):
- 12 Days of Christmas
- 55 Christmas Project Ideas for Elementary Schoolage Students
- 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—Math Facts
- Holiday—North Pole Academy
- Holiday STEM Activities
- Phone call from Santa
- Santa Tracker
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Holiday Gifts for Teachers
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 gifts that don’t sound sounds like “money”.
Most popular gifts
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.
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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Three Projects to Kick Off the Holidays
Click to enlarge lesson plan
A Holiday Calendar
Kids love making this calendar. They get to talk about their upcoming vacations and hear what their friends are doing. It’s simple enough for third grade with advanced tools that satisfy a fifth graders growing intellect.
A Holiday Newsletter
Have students collaborate on a newsletter for a classroom unit of inquiry or a theme (colonies, animals, etc). Pick a template. Add text and pictures. Pay attention to layout details. Allow several class periods to complete
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Happy Thanksgiving! Taking a Break Nov. 23-30
I wish you and all yours a wonderful Thanksgiving on November 28th as well as a restful break. Enjoy your family and friends, take time to rest.
I’ll be around only in a limited way, then, back fulltime December 1st.
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#20: A Holiday Card in a Drawing Program (like KidPix)
Create a holiday card for Thanksgiving or Christmas in KidPix or another drawing program and reinforce early writing skills while teaching mouse skills, toolbars and tool use: (more…)
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A Thanksgiving Poll–What does ‘Turkey’ mean?
A few years ago, I did a poll on the meaning of the word ‘turkey’. This was to demonstrate how powerful symbols are to your students and do so with an authentic use of technology to support discussion on math, language standards, and the holidays.
As a summation to your discussion with students on symbols, idiomatic expressions, geography, farms, or another topic, post this on your class screen. The poll includes lots of definitions for the word ‘turkey’. Have each student come up sometime during the day (or class) and make their choices. The one below is a sample:
What definitions did your students come up with I didn’t list?
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Thanksgiving Activities That Keep You in Charge of Learning
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:
- 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 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
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):
- 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 Lesson Plans
- Turkey Templates — activities in Google Slides
If you’re looking for projects, you’ll find two on Ask a Tech Teacher:
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
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
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]