Thanksgiving is almost here! I thought you might be able to use the following Thanksgiving resources this week with students (or maybe even next week with your families!):
THANKSGIVING PASSES:
How about telling your students you are thankful for them with free pass from their teacher? Consider changing up the passes with this editable copy of the Thanksgiving Passes so you can change them up and make them the type of passes you are comfortable giving out to your students!
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It seems that for decades, elementary students (and their parents) eagerly await the reveal of who their teacher will be for the upcoming school year. Some schools post teacher names and class lists on the school’s windows, some send out postcards, and others have teachers call each family to introduce themselves and reveal that they are the assigned teacher for the year. Last school year, on our campus, we tried a new way to reveal homeroom teachers to our families that was loved by families and staff.
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I’ve heard it said many times that Educator TikTok should count as Professional Development! I have to say that I, too, have learned so much from other educators on TikTok! So… as a principal, I decided to try to make TikTok PD a reality on a recent Professional Development Day on my campus. TikTok is blocked in my district, so I started by finding great TikToks that were also available on YouTube. Then, I found other short-form (about 3 minutes or less) videos on YouTube to create a Choice PD Bingo!
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I’ll admit it – I’ve jumped on the pastel rainbow bandwagon and there’s no turning back!!!! (Well maybe, when the next adorable trend turns my head… but for now… I’m all about those rainbows!) Rainbows have brought me joy since I was a kid in the 80s and I am more than happy that they are again surfacing as super cool (I was super cool back then, right?? – Don’t answer that.) I walked by 3rd grade teacher Barbara Pinto‘s classroom last week more than once and was intrigued not only by the rainbow title text, but also by her blended learning slide (but more on that another time).
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As we look toward the end of a lesson, a unit, or even a school year, we plan time to review the content. This often results in asking students questions (sometimes in creative ways to make the review a game or more fun). I love me a fun game for review, but when I think about the level of thinking in order for the review to be quick and teams to be able to take turns, it usually ends up being pretty low-level questions – recalling and regurgitating information. The other thing I often observe (ahem… and maybe did a lot as a teacher) during reviews (especially prior to a big assessment) is talk a lot. I never meant to talk my students’ ears off – I always started with a review game of some sort and then if a student got something wrong, or if we came to a topic I felt the class still didn’t fully understand, I would suddenly break into lecture mode for 5-10 minutes to tell them everything I wanted to make sure they knew about the topic. As if hearing me talk about it would cement it in their brains? I think we sometimes think if we make sure we tell them everything one more time before the big test, they’ll get it… but that is far from the truth.
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Texas just went through a pretty major winter storm event which kept students across the state home from school. Many of our students made wonderful and scary memories because of this event. Some of our students saw snow for the first time in their lives, but also lost power and may have been freezing and hungry in their homes. No matter what they experienced, our students will walk in our school doors (or Zoom or Google Meet screens) wanting to talk about their experiences. I believe we should most definitely allow students time and freedom to discuss and share their experiences… but at the same time… YIKES! We just lost 5 instructional days!!! How can we value our students, allow them to process and share, but not lose more time?!?! Play a quick game of Stand Up If… followed by a quick write and small group share. 15 minutes or less will allow ALL students to share, feel heard, and hear from other students.
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In chatting with my fourth-grade daughter about New Year’s Resolutions and setting goals for the new year, I provided several prompts to help her think about what she wanted to do better, learn more about, remember, and improve on. In prompting her, I realized I needed to take time to reflect on these same prompts before setting goals for myself! When I told her that I wanted to be a better mom, wife, and principal, she was quick to tell me that I didn’t need to improve – I was already a grown up! This led to an awesome conversation where I got to share that as humans we are never done growing and learning and getting better and that I was definitely going to be thinking and reflecting and setting goals for improvement, too.
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I love the whole idea of Thanksgiving – that we should take time to reflect on our blessings and be grateful for the good things in our lives. I also love a great game! Combining those two loves… I have template for you with directions for TWO printable games – Thanksgiving Categories (think Scattergories with Thanksgiving prompts) and I’m Thankful For… which challenges players to think of something they are thankful for that goes with EVERY letter of the alphabet – with points for every unique answer!
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A huge trend among our young students right now is collecting mystery reveal prizes. These are sometimes referred to as “blind bags”. These are a series of toys or figurines that kids buy without being able to tell which one they are going to get. Some are labeled as “Common” and others are “Rare” or “Ultra Rare” – which are, of course, highly coveted. I brainstormed with my daughter (who loves these mystery reveal prizes, by the way) how I might create a template that mirrors the excitement and fun of revealing a prize while practicing school work. I also wanted the template to be useful as both a DIGITAL template for online learners AS WELL AS a PRINTABLE for use without a computer. Here’s what we came up with:
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I love sharing ideas on this blog that I think will either help teachers, save time, or engage students… but lately, as we are all working harder than ever before to teach through this pandemic, I am at a loss for what I can do to help other educators (or myself). So, this post veers slightly off course from what I normally share, but does answer a few requests I have received asking me to show how I make the backgrounds for my slide decks (like the backgrounds in my Student Planner and To-Do List Post and the backgrounds in my Rank & Justify Slides Template).
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Meredith Akers 