Celebrate the Holidays!

I know some of these ideas might be a little late for the Thanksgiving holiday, but maybe some of you will want to bookmark them for next year.  Plus, some other sites were shared with me about the upcoming holiday season and winter months, so I wanted to go ahead and share those with you as well.


Packing the Pilgrim's Trunk - This theme exploration helps students in grades K-2 explore who the Pilgrims were, learn about their trip aboard the Mayflower, think about what it was like to move to a new world and discover how they adapted and built new lives at Plymouth Colony.


National Museum of the American Indian - Many resources are provided on this site, including poster images and photos, lesson plans on the topic of Thanksgiving, sections on American Indian perspectives on Thanksgiving, and a selection of instructional ideas/links for the classroom.


Let's Talk Turkey: The Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner - According to Butterball, 90% of U.S. households eat turkey on Thanksgiving and 50% eat turkey on Christmas day.  This lesson is for grades 9-12 and includes information about the consumer price index and how much a typical Thanksgiving dinner costs.


Myth and Truth: The First Thanksgiving - This lesson is for grades 6-8 and helps students explore myths surrounding the Wampanoag, the pilgrims, and the first Thanksgiving.  Students should learn the difference between myth and historical truth through the course of the lesson. 


A Christmas Carol - This book was an instant success for Charles Dickens and remains one of his best-known works.  One idea from this site is to have a middle school or high school class write a script for "A Christmas Carol" on a level that primary students can read and perform.  


Using Snowflake Bentley as a Framing Text for Multigenre Writing - This is for grades 3-5 and is based on "Snowflake Bentley", a Caldecott Medal-winning book about Wilson Bentley.  In this lesson, students examine multiple texts about snow and develop a working definition of the term multigenre.


Frosty the Snowman Meets His Demise - In this lesson, students will be asked to consider the case of when Frosty the Snowman met his demise (began to melt).  The exercise they go through will help them understand how scientists use carbon dating to try to determine the age of fossils and other materials. 


Holidays 2010 - This site has other activities, lesson plans, podcasts and other resources about the holiday season.


Consider this post an extra treat for this week!

Short week!

I wish for all of you a relaxing and refreshing time with your families and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday.  I will be working on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  My daughter is visiting from Alabama and she has not been home since last year's Thanksgiving, so I want to spend as much time with her as I can. 


I am continuing work on the Civil Rights Data Collection for our district and want to thank all of you who have helped me gather the data to input.  I hope to have the majority of it done by the time I leave work on Tuesday afternoon.  That is my focus for these two days.


This week I want to share some Websites that contain lots of links and information about becoming a 21st century educator:


5 Tips to Becoming a 21st Century Educator
More Great Web 2.0 Tools
10 Cool Web 2.0 Tools for Educators
10 Cool Web 2.0 Tools for Educators, Part 2
Web 2.0 Science Tools
Creating a Facebook Page for Your School


Maybe you will find something you can use in your classroom!