Thanksgiving Lessons

Are you looking for some clever ways to teach your students about Thanksgiving this year? This major American holiday is only two weeks away. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to plan out a lesson! There are many methods you may choose to use when it comes to teaching about this holiday. Read on for some ideas you may not have considered before.

One:  Separate the myth from reality when it comes to Thanksgiving. There are a lot of common “facts” about Thanksgiving that are not true, such as the “First Thanksgiving” being the first feast of its kind. Use this opportunity to teach about similar harvest feasts around the world, and teach students what types of food were actually served at this celebration. Make sure to emphasize how Native Americans were the ones who helped the pilgrims to survive. Perpetuating myths only leads to your students being ignorant.  

Two: Give an unbiased lesson on Thanksgiving. There is contention about the holiday of Thanksgiving and many Native Americans have come forward to speak out against the holiday. The traditional Thanksgiving history taught in schools is accurate in the sense that the pilgrims and Native Americans (Wampanoag) had a feast together. However, the lesson usually ends there. What is not often taught is that within the next fifty years, the Wampanoag ceased to be free. How you approach this depends on the age group, as with older students you may assign readings, but with younger students you’ll want a more delicate approach. There are many resources out there that detail how colonists damaged Native American’s way of life to help guide you.

Three: Give a lesson on Native Americans in the USA, today. Younger children may not realize that the Native American population is still in modern-day America. This is a great time to combat negative Native American stereotypes. Teach students about modern customs and Indian reservations. There are millions of Native Americans in the USA today, some on reservations and some not. Take time to give your students some perspective.

Four: Give back to the community. Thanksgiving is a time of giving thanks and being grateful for what you

have. It is also a time to reflect on what others in the community do not have. Poverty is a big problem in the United States. There are many people who must choose between having a home and having a meal, and people who do not have a home at all. Encourage students to help out by volunteering their time to the community. Another great idea is to hold a food drive. Your donation can go to a larger organization, or to a smaller, local one. Teaching students about helping those in need is important as it will give them a new perspective and help them understand problems in our society more easily.

Five: Do some fun activities as well! Give students a balanced day of educational and fun, particularly for younger students. In addition to teaching them about Thanksgiving, complete a Thanksgiving craft! Maybe give a creative writing assignment. A great example is to have students write from the point of view of a turkey, trying not to be eaten. Don’t be afraid to add a bit of silliness to your lesson plan.

We hope that some of these tips have given you some ideas for giving a well-rounded lesson about Thanksgiving. Enjoy the upcoming holiday, and never forget to be thankful for everything that you have. 

Last Minute Halloween Ideas

Halloween is only about a week away. Did the holiday sneak up on you? Were you unsure if your school would give permission for Halloween celebrations and just found out it is allowed? No matter what the reason, we’re here to give you some tips for preparing a quick and easy Halloween celebration for your classroom!

Tip one: Let students come to class in costume. This is the easiest way to make the day feel like a celebration. Make sure to give your students guidelines regarding what type of costume is appropriate for class. Surprise your students by dressing up as well! Even if you don’t have time in your day for any type of party, allowing students to wear costumes makes the day special.

Tip two: Put together some simple crafts for students to do the day of the party. There’s a lot of complicated Halloween crafts out there, but there are plenty of simple ones as well! For example, you could have students all make the classic garbage bag ghost craft. All you need is newspaper, a white garbage bag, string, and a marker! Or students could make a Halloween chain out of orange and black paper. Keep it extra simple by printing off some Halloween coloring pages for students! Crafts are always a hit at classroom Halloween parties.

Tip three: Buy some treats for the classroom from the store yourself. Coordinating which student brings what can get hectic, and making your own treats takes time. There’s plenty of Halloween treats at grocery stores to buy. Get some Halloween cupcakes and cookies. Maybe bring a big pack of candy. This method only works well if you don’t mind giving your students less healthy options. A healthy Halloween snack takes a bit more planning.

Tip four: Play a fun Halloween movie. Kids will love having the last hour or two at the end of the day to watch a movie. There’s plenty of Halloween movies appropriate for children out there to choose from.

Tip five: Plan simple class activities that take little preparation. A popular one is to place candy in a jar and have students guess how much is inside. The winner gets the candy! Play a Halloween version of popular games such as bingo. Have students use sensory skills by playing a Halloween version of “what’s in the box”, in which students must feel the item in the box without being able to see it and guess what it is. Include things such as toy spiders and gourds. Students will love it!

Planning a Halloween celebration for your class can be as complicated or simple as you want it to be. We hope these tips will help you give your class a simple but fun Halloween! 

Fall Fun

Fall will officially be here next week, but for all intensive purposes the season is already underway. As temperatures start to drop and leaves begin to change, students will grow more and more excited about the new season. This presents you with a great opportunity. Take the new season that students are excited about and use it to teach. This can include everything from lessons plans to fun activities. Below we’ve listed ten great ideas for using fall to your advantage as an educator.

1.       Track the leaves as they change color. There are multiple ways you can implement this in your classroom. You could make this an individual activity, and have students record the color of the leaves they see at school or at home. You can also make it a classroom activity, and take students out every day to observe a tree outside of the school, then record the color in your class. While you do this, you can focus on topics such as what makes leaves change color, different types of trees, and more.

2.       Do some fall crafts with your students. There’s tons of fall crafts out there for you to make with students. Do a simple Google search, or invest in a craft book for some fun, creative ideas. You can create these crafts in one of two ways. First, you could make a craft based off the theme of fall. This means make some sort of fall craft using traditional arts and crafts materials, such as paint, construction paper, etc. Another way you can handle that is to use actual fall items, such as leaves, pumpkin seeds, etc, to make the craft. Students will have a blast.

3.       Another great way to celebrate fall with your students is to take them on a field trip. Field trips have great educational value, and are very exciting for students. One very fun and educational trip you can do is to go to a pumpkin patch, or go apple picking. Students can pick a pumpkin to take home or pick a batch of apples. It gives them a chance to see where these items come from. Plus, these areas often have other activities such as apple cider, corn mazes, and more! If you’re looking for a different idea, maybe try a local farm. This will show students in greater detail where their food comes from and meet the people who produce this food on a daily basis.

4.       Since the weather will be changing, fall is a great time to start tracking weather changes. Every day you can have students come in to a set up “weather station” to record different aspects of the weather. This will give them a hands on experience with weather while giving you an opportunity to teach them about different types of weather, and why different types of weather happen. Focus on something easier, such as temperature and rain VS sunshine for younger students, while for older you can focus on items such as humidity, wind speed, rainfall amount, and more. Some of this can be manually done, and some may require you to check official sources.

5.       A great lesson you can do could be on autumn fruits and vegetables. You can explain what it means for an item to be in season, and give a lesson on the specifics of each piece of produce. Some common produce it could be good to focus on includes apples, broccoli, carrots, celery, cranberries, mushrooms, onions, pears, potatoes, and pumpkins. You can use activities to drive the point home as well. Have a food festival, where each student brings in samples of foods using fall produce. You can also make a cookbook, with each student bringing in a fall recipe!

6.       Since pumpkins are so common for fall, why not have a lesson about the pumpkin life cycle? While students are likely to know what a pumpkin is and how to decorate it, they aren’t as likely to know other things about a pumpkin, such as how it grows, what it weighs, how big it can get, and how to cook with it besides a pumpkin pie.

7.       A good nature walk isn’t just for spring! There’s tons of different things to discover during a nature walk in the fall. Good items to have students hunt for include different types of leaves, nuts, animals such as squirrels, birds, etc, pinecones, mushrooms, and much more!

8.       You can have themed writing activities for any occasion, including fall. You can approach this in multiple ways. First, you can have students write about fall specifically, such as what they like to do during fall, popular fall activities, and more. Another option is to have fall be the central point of a creative writing activity. Students can create a fictional story based around the season and season activities. This will get them to stop and think a bit more critically about the season!

9.       One easy way to celebrate fall is of course, to decorate your classroom! You can do this by hanging student crafts, making fall bulletin boards, hanging other fall decorations, and more.

10.   The last example we have for you is to plan themed subject lessons around fall. For language arts, have writing and reading activities focused on fall. For science, do experiments using items such as leaves and apples. For math, make problems using fall items, such as counting pumpkin seeds. For history, focus on fall in different cultures and in different time periods. There’s tons you can do with this tip!

Those are our tips for using fall in your lesson plans. We hope you use a couple of them with your students! 

Back to School Activities

Pretty soon all teachers and students will be back in classes again. Are you still looking for an activity or two to round out your first day? The first day of a new school year is very important. It establishes you as an authority figure in your classroom and gives students their first impression of you. It is very important that you begin to get to know your students from day one, and that your students get to know each other as well!

There’s all sorts of things you can do to accomplish this. You can try activities, writing prompts, crafts…there’s a myriad of options, and so one is sure to work for you! If you’re stuck, try out one or more of the ideas we’ve come up with!

Activities

A fun activity to encourage students to speak to one another is to have them become detectives. Students will become their own version of Sherlock Holmes as they investigate clues about their classmates. Each student gets a card and writes down clues about themselves. Give some examples of the types of clues students should use. Remind your students they cannot use the words on the index cards! They must engage their brain to try and ask their fellow students questions related to the clues on the cards without using the word. This activity will make students think and interact with others as well!

If you’re looking for a classic activity, a time capsule is the way to go. There are many ways to handle an activity like this, but here’s what we recommend. Give each of your students a brown paper bag and tell them to decorate it however they want. They can draw on it, glue pictures of their favorite shows, books, sport players…whatever they want! Inside the bag they should place several items they feel represent them. Make your own bag as an example. They should also fill out a sheet of paper with answers to questions you come up with. Some great ideas are favorite school subject, school subject they struggle with, favorite TV show, hobbies, etc. Later that week every student explains their bag and chooses several questions on their sheet to share with the class. At the end of the year they get their bags back and can see how they’ve progressed and what has changed!

An active social life at school is almost as important as an active academic life at school. Some students struggle with making friends. Maybe it’s because they are shy. Maybe because they have a difficult time finding people with the same interests as them. Well that’s what this activity is for. Line your students up and instruct them to step forward if the answer is “yes” to any of the questions you ask. At this point, ask questions related to student’s interests. Some examples: “Have you ever been to a baseball game?” “Do you enjoy reading?” “Do you play an instrument?” Invite students who step forward to share details if they wish. Once the activity is complete, encourage students to seek out others that answered yes to some of the questions they answered yes to. This allows them to discover what students they have things in common with, and allows you to get to know them better.  

Writing Prompts

Instead of simply asking students to write an essay about what they did over the summer, focus on a writing prompt that is going to help you get to know them better. Here’s some options!

·         What are your hobbies? Write an essay describing them, why you love them, and a personal anecdote about you doing each one.

·         What goals do you have going into school this year? What goals do you have for the years beyond this one?

·         What was an important event in your life, and how has it changed you?

·         What do you enjoy about school? What do you not enjoy about school?

·         The science project that went wrong (fiction)

·         The class that had no rules (fiction)

Of course, that’s just a small list of the many activities and writing prompts you may use. We hope that some of them will be useful! 

Creative Summer Activities

We’re right in the middle of summer, and some kids might be getting a bit bored. Or are you just looking for something more creative to do that your kids will be talking about for ages? We’ve compiled a list of ten creative activities you can do this summer that kids will love.  

1.       Put some time and energy into creating a box house with your kids. You can make all different sizes, and this house can be as easy or complex as you want. For the youngest kids, all you need is a large appliance box and a box cutter to make some windows and a door. If you want something bigger, you can make the frame and roof of the house with multiple boxes. Kids can help make it too! Let them draw where they want windows and doors, color on details such as window sills and curtains, and more!

2.       Be prepared for summer storms with a rainy day box. It’s really simple! Just fill a box with indoor things for rainy days. This way kids won’t default to watching TV shows and movies for the whole day. Great items to go into this box are board games, coloring books, craft kits, books, and more. Update the box after every rainy day with new items.

3.       Plenty of kids run a lemonade stand in summer. Why not try something different, such as a bake stand? Kids can bake a small variety of treats such as cupcakes and cookies, then set up a stand. They can even offer lemonade as well! This makes the stand a multiple day activity, with all of the baking.

4.       Another fun idea that really utilizes kid’s creativity is to have them roleplay. Most kids engage in roleplay activities with items such as play kitchens, but push it further. Make the roleplay fresh. Have kids do a super hero plot, with someone as the hero, villain, and victim! Kids can dress up, use household items as props, or even make props for the occasion. Some other creative options include witches/wizards, western, and medieval times!

5.       Make a nature scavenger hunt for your kids. All you have to do is type up some items then take your kids outside or to the park to find everything. Need some examples of things to have kids hunt for? Send them searching for items such as sticks, multiple types of leaves, something green, different sized rocks, and more!

6.       Help your kids create something magical by working on a fairy garden together. This project will likely take you a few days and requires some planning. First you’ll need to find the right section of yard or container for your garden. Next you will have to get ideas for the garden so you can gather supplies. What does your kid want? A pond? A cave? Once you gather the materials, all that’s left to do is put it all together. If you want a detailed tutorial there’s tons of them online.

7.       Create a water park in your backyard! Put together different water activities. Set up the sprinkler, fill the baby pool, lay out the slip n’ slide, as well as any additional things you can think of! You could set up a water balloon and water gun stand, or make it like a real water park with a section of lawn chairs for resting in the sun. If you want to get very creative, you could even set up a snack station outside to serve as the food court!  

8.       Another great indoor activity is a themed movie night. Choose one or two movies, both centered around a similar topic, and make an event of it! For example, what if you choose two movies about magic? Make some snacks such as wizard hat cupcakes, and have everyone make their own wands to bring for the evening. What about a movie about animals? Have everyone wear something with an animal on it, such as a T-shirt. Have a big container of animal crackers for snacks. There’s tons of options with this one!

9.       Have fun with chalk in a new way! Are your kids bored of chalk? Try to challenge them! Have them pick out an art piece they like and print a picture of it. Your child can then try to re-create it in chalk. This will be more difficult and will likely occupy kids for a while.

10.   Celebrate cooking in a new way with a mud kitchen outside. Give your child several pots and pans, as well as some dishes to play with. We recommend old ones you no longer plan to use. Then have kids mix up their own “meals” using items from outside. Fill jars with dirt and sand. If you have any empty spice containers, fill them with pebbles, small sticks, and torn up leaves. Now kids can mix up “food” without using any actual ingredients.

There you have it! These great ideas are sure to keep young ones entertained. Give them a try next time your kids are looking for something new to do.

Make Father's Day Special

Father’s Day is fast approaching, so it’s time for kids to start planning what to do with their dads! Though it is fairly standard to give a gift, children should be encouraged to do more than that! There’s tons of things you can do on Father’s Day to make dads feel special. But don’t fret if you need ideas, because we’re here to help. Offer these tips to students to help them get creative with the holiday.

Many dads enjoy cooking out, especially since Father’s Day falls in June, when the weather is heating up and it’s the perfect time to be outdoors. Encourage students to participate. They can watch and learn about grilling food. They can offer to help with more simple tasks, such as buttering corn on the cob. They can set the table for the family. The help is sure to be greatly appreciated.

Summer is also a season for sporting events, and Sundays are big days for games. Students could offer to watch a game with their dads. They can ask questions to learn more about his team, his favorite players, and more. Dads will love talking about it, especially to their children who are not sport inclined.

It’s a stereotype that dads enjoy gold for a reason. Students can offer to go golfing, whether it is to the driving range or for a round of mini golf. The offer will be appreciated.

Fishing is another classic Father’s Day activity. If you live anywhere near water, it can be a fun bonding experience for children and their dads. This pastime is relaxing, allowing time to chat, and exciting, when someone is attempting to make a catch.

Encourage students to find out what their dad’s favorite meal is, and have them cook it! Whether it’s making much of it on their own or just having several small tasks in the process, their dads are sure to appreciate it.

Above all, students should ask about his interests and use those to plan a fun activity. Does he enjoy art? Maybe it’s time for a trip to the museum, or to paint together. Interested in history? Watch a documentary together. Students who attempt to find an activity that is personal will leave their dads touched.

Make sure you encourage students to do something special to show all the dads out there how important they are! 

Free Mother's Day Printable

Mother’s Day is just several days away. Do you want something fun but simple to do with your class? Then this free Mother’s Day printable is perfect for you! Simply print it and hand it out to your class. This is an easy but sweet craft that students can give to their mother’s on Sunday.

It’s not a color by number printable, which will give students a chance to be more creative in their color choices for this picture. Need more? Have students try these additional things to make Mother’s Day even more special.

~ Suggest students write a letter to go with the picture.

~ Have students create their own homemade cards. All they will need is a piece of folded construction paper to get started!

~ Show students how to make personalized coupons for their mothers. Offer suggestions such as “One Free Hug” or “Clean Room”.

~ Encourage your students to try writing a poem or a song for their mom.

~ Tell your students to try making breakfast for their mothers (with another adult’s or sibling’s supervision, for young ones).

These simple ideas are particularly good for young students!