Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Turkey Day


Happy Turkey Day Song!
Click to listen:

Boy my Thanksgiving this year has me feeling like I'm running around with my head cut off.
To give some background, my family dinner is postponed this year until Sunday since my mom and dad are out of town. And since they've always cooked the turkey no one else wanted to take on that job. My ONLY job today was to take the turkey out of MY freezer and drive it over to their house to thaw out in their fridge for the next few days. Sounds simple, but not really. Yesterday my automatic garage door was acting up and not shutting properly, so I put it into manual mode.  So I got up this morning, put the frozen turkey in my car, manually lifted up the door, pulled my car out and then the trouble started. I got out of the car to pull the door back down and my middle finger got caught and pinched in the now closed garage door. I was literally stuck to the garage door. I started hollering for help like crazy.
Luckily some volunteer workers for the annual Turkey Trot heard my ruckus and I told them to call 911. After what seemed like forever a police officer saved the day and pulled up the garage door and I was released. Now I'm nursing a big, fat bruised finger and I REFUSE to park my car back in the garage until I can get someone to figure out how to get my garage door to work properly. Said car is sitting in my driveway and I'm icing my finger.

Hope everybody else's Turkey Day was a little less hectic.


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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Let's Take Me Back Tuesday

I'm joining Second Grade Shenaningans Linky to reshare a favorite December lesson.

Originally posted December 7, 2012




My students completed our Gifts of Giving Writing this week.
Their ideas were cute and thoughtful.




"First of all, without moms in my life it would be an awful time because they make your day bright."


This student thought that, "... fire is a good thing because we need it to light up a candle
so we can celebrate birthdays."

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Thursday, November 21, 2013

Teaching about Immigration, Ellis Island and Today's Pilgrims

My class just finished an in depth author study of Patricia Polacco.
We learned how her family immigrated to the U.S. from Russia.

I read the book Coming to America to teach more about the immigration process.


Then we explored Scholastic's site on immigrants which includes video clips of immigrant children today as well as background on Ellis Island.



Finally, we connected Patricia Polacco's family history of being Russian immigrants to the novel Molly's Pilgrim. A video is available for the story too that we compared the book to.


View a video clip

To wrap up our pilgrim and immigration focus students made their own Molly's Pilgrim doll.


I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 
Come Join the group!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Classroom Management: Tips for Keeping Kids on Track

I posted over at All Things Upper Elementary today about ways help students stay focused and on track.

Pop on over to read more


~Enjoy
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Saturday, November 2, 2013

Veterans Day


I love teaching about Veterans Day.
Each year I add more to my teaching resources.

VA for Kids has an online coloring book



History Channel has some great video clips

Bet You Didn't Know Clip


History of Veterans Day



Don't miss ALL previous posts on Veterans Day too!


If interested, I have this Veterans Day pack in my store.



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