It feels like August. For the first 18 years of my career in education, school started in August. In Australia, the new teaching year begins this week.
Today’s post is a shout out to all teachers in the Southern hemisphere. Those in my beloved North may find something new too.
Why Are You Blogging?
Many posts are dedicated to teacher blogging and the notion that all teachers should blog. Last week, I wrote a piece for The Edublogger highlighting the many purposes behind blogs. If you’re looking to set up a class blog anytime soon, this post is worth a read.
First Day Lesson Plans
If you’re like me, you stare the first few pages of a lesson plan book and wonder How do I begin? Most of the time, I go back to first day games and activities that have worked successfully in the past.
If you’re simply feeling nostalgic, you might read about technology that has been used in education over the past 30 years. The post was inspired by my former school’s tech museum.
While you’re on Jaqui’s site, take a look through her posts. You’ll find helpful websites that enhance curriculum. You’ll also find written curriculum for tech instruction at each grade level. Jaqui is truly a master teacher – and an amazing person.
If you know of anyone who might find this article helpful, please pass it on. Also consider subscribing to Expat Educator for immediate email feeds. Your address will never be shared. Promise.
If students have not yet made presents for their parents, now is the time. In addition to holiday activities that teach to curriculum standards, there is room for an hour or two of crafts – especially when done as a way of giving to others.
Below are videos demonstrating four Christmas craft ideas.
When choosing crafts, consider three things:
If possible, crafts should provide an opportunity for learning beyond the practice of fine motor skills.
Given your time constraints this time of year, you want to choose crafts that require as little prep as possible.
Given school budgets, you want to plan crafts that don’t dig into your purse or cause you to have to fill out multiple reimbursement forms.
Danish Christmas Ornaments
In the Danish tradition, Heart-shaped ornaments are hung from Christmas trees and filled with cookies.
The ornaments require paper, scissors, and a heap of spacial reasoning skills. Challenge your students to tackle weave designs of increasing complexity.
3-D Christmas Cards
Pop-up cards are fun to receive. For younger students, the process of creating the card requires spacial reasoning. You can create the cards from paper, stencils, and other materials you happen to have around your classroom.
Felt Christmas Ornaments
Students love to see how simple cuts and folds can be used to create art. Consider combining this craft with activities related to the Mobius strip.
Beaded Santa Ornaments
If you have time to pick up beads, the Santa ornaments are a hit with the students. Under the video is the roadmap for each row of beads.
After the initial jingle bell and white bead…
Red, Red
Red, Red, Red
Red, Red, Red, Red
White, White, White, White, White
White, Pink, Black, Pink, Black, Pink, White
White, Pink, White, White, Pink, White
White, White, Pink, White, White
White, White, White, White
White, White, White
Many thanks to my teaching assistant, Nancy, and to the many parents who helped show me these craft ideas.
What are your favorite holiday craft gifts to parents? Please share!
If you find this post valuable, please consider doing one or more of the things in the storyboard below…
It’s time to get out the lesson plan book and plan for December. Below are ideas for math, reading, writing, and social studies.
Ideally, December lessons follow four criteria. They…
fit curriculum standards,
make students smile,
take very little prep time to pull together, and
require very little marking.
You can do holiday activities that address standards such as the Common Core or the Australian National Standards.
So what kinds of activities are holiday-like and fun and academic?
Math
Graphing, Probability, Statistics: Younger students can have fun graphing fun Christmas foods. Older students can use the same items to investigate sample sizes or play with probability.
3D Shapes: Make these ornaments and refer to them during class while naming them, finding surface area, etc.
Problem-Solving: You’ve probably sung The 12 Days of Christmas. One partridge was given on the first day. On the second day, there were 2 turtle doves and a partridge – making a total of 3 gifts. If this pattern continues, how many total gifts would be given on the 12th day? How many total over the full 12 days?
Build the excitement with a picture book based on the song – or the song might be in you iTunes playlist. My favorite version:
Writing
Stories: So what would life be like for the person who received all 12 days of gifts? Discuss. If inspired, write the story. Create a character who gives and one who receives. Put them in a setting. What is the motivation for the gifts? What are the daily consequences?
Poetry: In Ralph Fletcher’s book Poetry Matters, he shares that there was a year he wrote poems as gifts for each member of his family. Poems were written based on interests and hobbies of the person who would receive the poem. Poems can be decorated or framed – something that is good to do the final hours of the final day.
Persuasive Writing: Jen from Runde’s Room suggests students write letters to Santa from the point of view of a literary villain. She posts some examples that students can use as mentor texts.
Vocabulary, Grammar, and Word Study: Students guess the identities of obfuscated Christmas carols. Younger students can go to Visuwords for help. My favorites:
Those in Christian religious schools can delve into all the metaphors used to describe the coming Messiah. What does it mean that Jesus would be the Lion of Judah? Prince of Peace? What about other metaphorical references to Jesus as the Good Shepherd? The Door? Others?
Reading/Writing Connections:
For an ESL reading/writing connection, students can talk through various pages from Peter Spier’s Christmas, a wordless picture book. Pick pages to talk through each day and label items like mistletoe with post-its. Students can later either write out words for the page or they can compare Peter Spier’s Christmas to Christmas in their country of heritage.
The Polar Express website includes an interactive calendar of short writing activities – one activity for each day in December. The North Pole has additional activities.
Analyzing/Inferring: If your library has a good stock of Christmas picture books (or Hanakkuh), bring some back to the classroom. Have pairs of students read a book and come to consensus on the most important line in each book. The pairs write the most important line on a sheet of butcher. Rotate the books so that each pair gets a different story for each of the 3-5 days. Do the ‘most important lines’ agree? if not, can groups come to consensus? Wrap it up by asking students what they believe the author believes is the meaning of Christmas. Do students agree or disagree? Defend. Ruth Morgan has put together books on Hanukkah.
Those who do not have a large stock of Christmas books can listen to stories on Storynory or The North Pole. Again, have students create story mountains, summarize, or find the message behind a story or two.
History/Social Studies/Geography
History: Many students play soccer (football, for my Commonwealth friends) at recess. They might be interested to know that soldiers in WWI played soccer during periods of truce. In fact, both German and English soldiers played on Christmas.
The story is told to music by John McCutcheon. Commonwealth friends may want to preview and decide if the line “He’s singing bloody well, you know!” is appropriate for your age/classroom/school. The lyrics are online, if you care to print and distribute.
Religious Studies: Those of you that work in religious institutions, can label the prophesies on a timeline and compare them to the birth of Jesus. Simple and short, but powerful.
Research/History/Geography: Students pick a country that celebrates Christmas and research the celebrations in that country. Have students look for references to a Santa-like figure, other saints, and references to the Magi (if the Magi bring gifts in that particular country). Students can place references on Google maps using the same process as was described in the post about Haikus on Google maps. The research and presentation could last at least a week.
Mom and her twin sister (Mom is the one on the left)
June 16th was my first blogiversary. I started Expat Educator in honor of my mother, an amazing teacher who passed away a few days prior to the initial post.
Like many teachers, Mom was a believer in giving back to the community. The purpose of this post is to challenge readers to give back to the community during the free hours they have this summer.
Donating Time
Many of you, like me, may be tutoring for extra money. Consider taking on a student pro bono. A former student, Carlo, who spent a great deal of time in Ronald McDonald house was blessed by visits and lessons from stars such as Maroon 5.
So you’re not famous, but you have the opportunity to become famous in the life of a child (or an elderly person) by showing up to read. Perhaps there is a student from your school who could use and extra reading boost but can’t afford tutoring.
Visit the Red Cross
Mom was the recipient of a bone marrow donation given by an anonymous donor somewhere overseas. Our family was incredibly honored by the selfless act of someone we will never know.
Recently, an urgent email was sent to members of my school community (which also circulated my hubby’s work community) requesting people be tested as a possible bone marrow match.
The Red Cross nurses take about two teaspoons of blood which are sent to the laboratory. Important information is logged into a database so that you can be notified if/when you match someone in need of a transplant.
It is important to note that the donation process is a whole lot less invasive than the process 20 years ago. The newer method is explained well at marrow.org.
Even if you don’t want to be on the bone marrow donor registry, you can give blood.
Monetary Donations
Individuals can donate to child-related projects such as Kids Are Heroes (KAH). When you support this organization, you encourage kids who are selflessly giving their time in order to make the world a better place. Bloggers can write a post about Kids are Heroes for a “free” $10 brick on the KAH blogger wall.
Earlier this year, I wrote a post on Alternatives to Student Gifts. You can use the summer to identify a cause that you can ask students to support in lieu of giving you Christmas gifts. One of my favorite causes is Ember, an organization started by High School students that helps fund girls’ education in rural China.
A Word of Thanks
Many of you donated time to vote for Expat Educator as Teacher Blog of the Year. I’m honored to be shortlisted. One big lesson I’ve learned from a year of blogging (and a year of communicating with fellow bloggers) is that all bloggers appreciate words and gestures of support.
Mine is only one of many great education blogs. Each educational blogger gives back to the community. Please consider looking through my blogroll, reading the work of fellow education bloggers, and sending them some comment love.
In what other ways might you give back to the community this summer?
To a tween, the number of years until High School graduation seem like an eternity. No matter what the grade, it is important to send students off well. The tech-savvy might send students off with a memorable video.
You might also have an end-of-year ceremony (parents invited), celebrating the gifts of each child as well as memorable classroom moments.
See if some of these awards remind you of any of your students:
Good guy/gal award
Future World Leader
Amazing Artist
Scholar-Athlete
Most Likely to Win a Pulitzer Prize in Literature
Most likely to own a Luxury Cruise Line.
Best Dancer
Evil Laugh or Best Laugh
Best Smile
Terrific Technician
Most Likely to be Captain of the All Blacks
Most Likely to play Goalie for Liverpool
Future Superbowl MVP
Most Conscientious Student
Most Improved Student
Future American Idol
Fountain of Knowledge
Future Academy Award Winner
Einstein Award
Future Editor of Vogue (or other magazine)
Future Olympic Gold Medalist
Book Worm Award
Best Debater
Gentle Giant Award
Heart of Gold Award
Humanitarian Award
Strong but Silent Award
Most Dedicated Scholar
Most Likely to Earn More Money than Bill Gates (or other rich dude)
Most Renowned Civil War historian (or other part of history)
Most Photogenic
Most Respected
Prada Award
Pulitzer Prize for Literature/Poetry
Strong Leader
Most Likely to Play in Carnegie Hall
Award for Making the World a Better Place
If you’re stuck on what award to give a student, you can pass a class list to each child. Beside each classmate’s name, students write a compliment or share a fun memory. Patterns will emerge – as well as interesting tidbits you wouldn’t otherwise know.
What awards might you add to this list?
If you like what you read, consider subscribing to Expat Educator (below).
It feels like August. For the first 18 years of my career in education, school started in August. In Australia, the new teaching year begins this week.
