Thanksgiving Ideas For The Classroom

Thanksgiving is coming up soon. Are you looking for unique activities to do to celebrate in your classroom? You don’t have to stick to lecturing about the history of the holiday. There’s tons of other things you can do to engage students right before the holiday!

·        Separate Thanksgiving facts from fiction with a visual board in a class-wide activity. There’s plenty of “facts” that are actually fiction, some of them damaging and some of them not. Make a game of having students guess which things are true and which are not.

·        Brainstorm ways to give back to the community. Take ideas from your students, no matter how big or small the idea is. From there have students vote and pick the top three community service projects. Discuss them. What would need to be done to get these goals accomplished? You may even be able to implement these ideas.

·        Have students save a turkey from Thanksgiving dinner! This fun activity really lets students get creative. Print off a free turkey template then have students use craft supplies to make a disguise for the turkey. Maybe have them write a short story to go with it!

·        Hold a Thanksgiving feast in your classroom or the school cafeteria. This one requires more preparation so get started sooner rather than later. Send out a memo to parents, asking students to sign up to bring in different dishes in the class. Maybe this is a proper Thanksgiving feast, or if you want to make it more simple hold a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving party instead!

·        Plan a Thanksgiving scavenger hunt in your classroom or outdoors on school grounds. Hide relevant items such as ears of corn, mini pumpkins, and more. The clues can be based on Thanksgiving history, math challenges, spelling challenges, anything you want!

Should Halloween Be Banned In School

Holidays on school premises have been an issue that has gained attention for years, and it shows no sign of slowing down. While the debate on acknowledging Easter and Christmas makes sense to most, there is a lot of confusion about why Halloween is getting banned more and more often at schools across the country. Today we’re diving into the debate about Halloween in schools.

1.      Religion – One of the big points that comes up during this debate is the issue of religion. No one wants to disrespect people’s religion, and Halloween can incense some parents from different religious backgrounds. Some people believe Halloween is directly related with the devil. Critics argue that Halloween encourages evil. But Halloween is not a religious celebration. It began as a Celtic event, as a day when the living could mingle with the dead. Really, Halloween is a mix of very old religious traditions, folklore, and secular traditions. On the whole, in modern society Halloween is not a holiday that celebrates a particular religion or denounces one. Much like Christmas parties in the classroom, you may want to play it safe by naming Halloween celebrations as fall ones, but this is more an issue of being politically correct versus breaking rules regarding religion in school.

2.      Distraction – Some make the argument that celebrating Halloween is too big of a distraction in the classroom. Class parties take time away from instruction time, and costumes keep students distracted during the day. This argument is that school is for education, not for play. If this is the case, then all holiday events should be banned from school. At the same time, this seems unreasonable. Something else that teachers think about is their students who come from poverty, who may not get a chance to celebrate different occasions throughout the year. Many classrooms choose to dedicate only a small amount of time to holiday celebrations so they do not lose much instruction time.

3.      Inappropriate Costumes – There are many Halloween stores out there, offering a huge variety of costumes. This means that students are showing up in costumes that are too violent, disturbing, and racist. Certain costumes may scare certain students, while costumes covered in fake blood are simply inappropriate for a classroom environment. Teachers and schools can implement costume requirements, such as banning certain costumes, or they may make their classroom themed. With costume policing however, it can just be easier to ban them altogether.

4.      Health – Classroom parties also bring up health concerns. This is not exclusive to Halloween celebrations, but as Halloween is associated with candy and other treats, a Halloween party is more likely to have unhealthy snacks than other. Filling kids with tons of sugary, fattening foods is becoming less and less popular. Luckily there are plenty of fun, healthy treats that can be made, but it takes some extra coordination.

5.      Safety – Amid the growing terrorism and school shooting fears, it is understandable that schools are uneasy about allowing children inside in costumes. Masks can disguise a student’s identity, and props can be used as weapons. So how does one address this particular issue? Again, costume restrictions are very important. Not allowing props or masks is an easy way to deal with this. If you bring in volunteers to help with the festivities, do a thorough background check.

      So, bottom line? Choosing to celebrate or not celebrate Halloween at your school is ultimately up to the individual school or classroom. Personally, we believe that as long as the celebration is handled in an appropriate way that there is no reason why you can’t celebrate Halloween in some capacity in the classroom.

Fall Activity Checklist

Fall is here, and that means it is the time to start enjoying fall activities! We’re going to list some of the best fall activities that you can do with your children or students. Doing seasonally themed activities can make for a great learning experience, even if you don’t specifically create a lesson to go with the activities.

1.      One of the most classic things you can do is take kids to an apple orchard to pick their own apples. But it doesn’t have to end there. Choose an orchard that offers additional activities. Sample some apple cider. Pick an orchard that has a store with locally made treats. Don’t just pick apples to eat, pick enough to take home and make a delicious dessert with them!

2.      Take your kids on a ghost tour. Now you’re not going to want to take them on a tour that is going to terrify them, but there are a lot of ghost tours that will take you through historic parts of town, and give a lot of local history at the same time. This is a great way to help kids learn more about their city, while grabbing their attention with spooky tales.

3.      Head to a farmer’s market. Fall is a big time for harvesting vegetables which means farmer’s markets will be full of tasty, local vegetables. Kids will get a better idea of where their food comes from and can make meals with tasty ingredients.

4.      Take a trip to see the fall colors. If you are going just with your kids, take a road trip somewhere with tons of fall leaves. If you are with a school group, take the kids to a local park. Fall colors are beautiful, so wait until peak season then take kids out to take a look.

5.      Take your kids or students to a fall festival. These festivals have tons of great fall-themed events, such as hay rides, corn mazes, pumpkin painting, and much more. A festival like this allows your kids to experience a lot of fall traditions all in one place.

6.      Make fall crafts, and even better, make them using fall items. Leaves, sticks, candy corn…there’s tons of stuff you can use to make fun crafts with your kids!

7.      Make homemade Halloween costumes! If you are doing this at home, go crazy! Make more complex, family Halloween costumes so you all look great for Halloween. If you are doing this in a classroom you may want to stick to costumes that are simpler, such as hats or masks.

8.      Kids have a lot of energy, and a great way to burn off some of that energy is a fun game of football. Organize it in the neighborhood, with just your family, or with your entire classroom. Make it touch football to reduce the risk of injury.

9.      Go on a nature walk. This is more than just a hike looking at fall colors, this is to see how the world changes when the seasons change. There will be different plants and animals, the air will feel and smell different, and even familiar surroundings will look different.

10.   Use the traditional tastes of fall to create different fall-themed dishes! Apple, cinnamon, pumpkin, caramel; there’s tons of great flavors and treats to make.

Common Foods That Make Kids Sick

A lot has changed in the past 100 years, especially our food and where it comes from. While it may be tempting to give your children hotdogs after a long day at work, you may want to read this list first. Some of the foods we’ll be listing here are simply unhealthy that can contribute to obesity, while others may contribute to the development of cancer. The best thing you can do for your child is to serve fresh food, with as little processed foods as possible. But here are some of the most commonly used foods that can be particularly detrimental to your child’s health.

1.      Fruit juice seems like it would be a healthy choice, when in fact it is usually packed with sugar with almost no actual fruit. Many fruit juices contain more corn syrup than actual juice, but even the 100% juice options are usually crammed full of sugar. Now certainly 100% fruit juice is better than soda, but you’re going to want to limit fruit juice intake. Most Americans get at least double the recommended intake of added sugar a day, and a single cup of juice can fulfill the full sugar limit all on its own.

2.      And speaking of soda, do not give your children diet soda with the assumption it is better for them than regular soda. While it doesn’t have sugar, it has artificial colors and dangerous chemicals. It usually has caramel coloring, which is currently being studied because it has caused cancer in rats.

3.      Deep fried foods. It is an obvious item, but it needs to be mentioned. Fried chicken, chicken tenders, breaded shrimp, onion rings. These items are high in fat, high in calories, and high in sodium. The key with this is moderation. By all means, go out for fried chicken every once in a while, but don’t make it a part of your weekly diet.

4.      Processed meats are extremely unhealthy in a number of ways. This includes sausage, bacon, lunchmeat, and more. They are now accepted as being a carcinogen, which is reason enough to stay far away from them. If you can’t give up bacon, limit it a lot. Make processed meats a very special treat.

5.      Cereal, one of the most popular breakfast items, is extremely unhealthy, even if you go for the “healthy” options. Not only do most cereals contain way too much sugar, but some of them contain ingredients that are banned in other parts of the world because they may cause cancer. Instead serve eggs, toast, oatmeal, or something else more natural than a sugary cereal.

6.      Canned soup is easy, cheap, and healthy. But not quite. Canned soup is packed with sodium, often half or more the sodium you should get in an entire day. It can also be packed with strange chemicals you’ve never heard of. Homemade soup is not hard to make, and it’s a lot better for you.

7.      Boxed Mac & cheese is another cheap, popular meal for kids that is filled with sodium. Depending on the brand, your kids will also be ingesting tons of fake ingredients, including the cheese. Making homemade Mac & cheese with real ingredients isn’t too hard, and there are ways you can make it more healthy, such as using low-fat cheese.

8.      If you think feeding your kid a salad is healthy, think again. Salad dressing can be packed with fat, sugar, and chemicals. By no means should you cut out salad, just choose the dressing you use with it carefully.

9.      Stay away from canned fruit or fruit cups. These are often bathed in oils and sugary syrups. These can contribute to obesity and other health issues so instead, just choose fruit. Simple fruit from your produce aisle.

10.   Frozen foods, whether these are hot pockets, TV dinners, or anything else requiring to just be warmed up are usually bad for you and your kids. They’re very processed, filled with sodium, and can cause a lot of adverse health issues. Before you choose a frozen meal take a good look at the nutritional facts to make sure the one you choose is not too unhealthy.

11.   Pop-tarts and their off brands are fast, sugary, and extremely unhealthy. Not only are they high in fat and sugar, but they contain chemicals that may cause cancer. Best to stay away from these entirely.

12.   Using margarine instead of butter is not a good alternative. It is a huge source of trans fats, which are bad for cholesterol. When cooking with butter use olive oil instead, and when using butter for bread stick with traditional butter, in moderation of course.

13.   Granola bars are often labeled as a healthy food, but they are anything but. Granola bars are actually filled with oils and sugars, making them more of a desert than anything else. Not only that, but they actually usually don’t make you feel full, leading to overeating.

14.   Popping a bag of microwave popcorn in for movie night is extremely bad for your child’s health. It’s filled with sodium, fat, artificial butter, calories, and strange “natural” flavors. There have also been some questions about if the chemicals in microwave popcorn may slightly increase the chances of cancer. Air popping popcorn from home actually makes for a healthy snack.

15.   Stay away from white bread and choose 100% whole wheat bread instead. White bread is made with flour that has no nutrition, often has strange preservatives, and also, surprisingly, has more sugar than you would think.

16.   Bagels have a reputation for being a healthy breakfast item, but between the high carbs and the calories and sugar the bagel has when not plain or covered in cream cheese, it becomes a very unhealthy way to start the day.

17.   An item you may not think about as being unhealthy is ketchup. Not only is one of its main ingredients corn syrup, but it contains a lot of sugar. And when you’re using ketchup with your French fries, you end up consuming a lot of ketchup without even thinking about it.

18.   Pancake mix makes for easy, delicious pancakes, but pancake mix has almost nothing in it except refined flour. Plus you add butter and syrup, then you have a high calorie, high sugar breakfast. Keep these as a special restaurant treat, not a staple in your home.

19.   Don’t indulge in red meat on a regular basis. That means cut back on the burgers and pork chops. Red meat is higher in fat and cholesterol than chicken and fish. You don’t have to cut out all red meat, just eat it in moderation.

20.   Many will claim that yogurt is healthy, and it can be, as long as you watch the yogurt you are giving to your kids. A lot of yogurt has tons of added sugar and artificial sweeteners. In general you want to go for Greek yogurt, and make sure to check the nutrition facts!

Use The Ocean as a Teaching Tool

Many people head to the beach in summer, but you can make it more than a fun outing! Either before your beach trip or during, take some time to teach your kids about the ocean.

·        A great introduction to beaches, and a great way to get kids to respect the beaches, is to teach them about what a healthy beach should look like. While at the beach, ask them questions. How crowded is it? Are there animals around? Is there trash on the ground or in the water? With kids you will likely be heading to a busier beach with a lifeguard, so once you’re home show them photos of unoccupied beaches. Ask them how humans change the beaches, and what they should do to treat the beaches well.

·        Now that your kids have talked about the human impact on beaches, extend that to the ocean. Ask what your kids think first, then give examples. Tell your kids about how sewage gets into the water. Show pictures of sea creatures trapped or injured due to garbage. Explain how boats and nets can hurt animals, even if they aren’t caught. This will encourage your children to take better care of the beach and even their neighborhood.

·        Now you can go more into the marine life in the ocean. Whales are a great place to start. Almost all kids know about them, and they have a complicated history. See what types of whales they know about, and expand that knowledge by telling them about species of whales they don’t know about. Explain whaling, when whales were hunted for not only their meat, but their blubber. The whale hunting caused some whales to go extinct, and most to be endangered. They are now protected. Feel free to discuss other marine life such as sharks, turtles, and jellyfish.

·        Now it’s time to dive deeper…in fact, dive as deep as you can go! The Mariana Trench is the deepest place on Earth, and that’s sure to grab your kid’s attention. Very few descents have been made, so what we know about this place is limited. Almost nothing lives in this deep part of the ocean, as far as we know. Because the water is so deep (almost 7 miles), the trench is dark with temperatures barely above freezing. Live humans have only reached the bottom of this trench one time. The water pressure is so high that almost nothing can survive down there. However, due to lack of exploration, for all we know there are creatures living in the depths that haven’t been discovered yet.

·        Now you can move on to ocean habitats that can hold more life than the deep Mariana’s Trench. Most of the ocean life your kids are familiar with will live in the upper zones of the ocean. There’s plenty of charts online that go into depth about these zones so be sure to use them!

Water Safety For Your Kids

Whether you’re a teacher at a camp or a parent with their kids, water safety is extremely important.

Heading to the beach or the pool in summer is a common activity, but don’t let that make you complacent. Water is always changing, and kids are always changing, so you have to keep your guard up when children are in the water.

The dangers of the water in a pool and the ocean can be similar, but there are some differences. We’ve broken it down into two separate categories so you’re ready no matter where you are.

Pool Safety:

~ Don’t leave children unattended. This is particular true for younger kids. If you need to go to the bathroom, take them with. Make sure you are in the water with them or that you can see them from wherever you are sitting. It can be easy in a small pool to trust the lifeguard, but you need to keep an eye on your own children. You know them, and you’re going to know right away if something is wrong.

~ Make sure children can swim at an appropriate level. In most pools children have to pass a swim test to go into deeper water, but even so, ensure your children’s swimming skills are up to par. If they aren’t strong swimmers enroll them in a class. The better they can swim, the less likely an accident is.

~ Teach your children not to swim around drains. Goggle straps, swimsuits, and hair can all get stuck in drains, which can mean big problems for your kids. It’s not as if your kids have to stay on the other side of the pool, but tell them not to dive and play right by a drain.

~ Ensure children practice safety themselves. While you can do everything you can to keep your children safe, they need to practice safety themselves. They need to understand their swimming skills, pool depths, and general safety practices. Once they know how to be safe, both the child and the adult are keeping safety in mind.

~ Make sure kids keep an eye on the sky. It’s easy for kids to get distracted by their fun time in the pool and forget about the weather. When clouds start to roll in, it’s time to be cautious. If there’s rain, or even thunder in the distance, it’s time to get out. If the clouds look bad enough it is important to get out of the water even with those warning signs, whether the other kids get out of the pool or not.

Ocean Safety:

~ Teach children how to swim in the surf. The surf is very different from a static swimming pool. In fact, taking kids to a wave pool is a good way to start. Children should never turn their back on the ocean, because waves can take them by surprise easily. They should be able to swim over waves without getting caught in the current.

~ Always swim on a beach with a lifeguard. It’s not like a pool, where it is easy to get to your child. In the ocean, the water is much different and can change at any moment. Lifeguards are trained to deal with this type of water, so only swim at beaches that do have lifeguards on duty.

~ Don’t let children swim alone. Whether you are in the water or another child is there with them, no one, especially children, should ever swim alone in the ocean. Always make sure your child has a swim buddy to keep an eye on them.

~ Watch the weather. The weather on beaches can change rapidly, especially in warmer climates where thunderstorms can be very common. Even if the clouds are in the distance, it is time to get out of the water. Lightning isn’t the only problem, but wind can stir up the water and make swimming even more difficult.

~ Teach kids to keep away from marine life. Jellyfish, while they look fun, are dangerous. Other plants and animals can also pose dangers. Tell your kids to stay away from plants and animals in the water for their own safety.

~ Keep away from piers. Not only are the waters more dangerous around here, but sharks are more drawn towards these piers. While shark attacks are rare, it’s better to be safe and keep kids away. Plus piers have more people, often more people fishing, which means fishing lines and fishing nets.

~ Always check the water conditions before swimming. You can find these online, by the flags on the beach, or from the lifeguard. If the water conditions make you wary, trust your instincts and keep yourself and the kids out of the water for the day.

Teach kids about rip currents. Rip currents pull you farther from shore and farther into the ocean. This is responsible for many of the deaths at beaches. Kids need to know how to deal with these.

·        Stay calm and don’t fight against the current.

·        Swim parallel to the shore until you’ve made it out of the rip current.

·        Once free, turn and swim back to shore.

·        If you get too tired, float or tread water.

·        If you can’t make it back to shore, signal for a lifeguard. 

Spring Writing Prompts

School isn’t out yet, and if you find your students are having a hard time focusing, particularly on writing, we have some prompts that will help. Writing prompts are a great way to get those minds working. Here’s some spring themed writing prompts to keep students writing.

1.      The trees, grass, and plants are all waking up from winter. Write about their feelings about this. Are they happy to be awake? Would they rather keep sleeping? What does the new season feel like?

2.      April showers bring May flowers, but what if those showers didn’t stop? Write a story about a world where it never stops raining. What happens? How do people live?

3.      It’s the time for gardens to start being planted. Write about the biggest garden you can imagine.

4.      Spring means warmer temperatures, which means you can finally spend more time outside. What are your favorite things to do outdoors in spring?

5.      Now that winter is over, birds are migrating back. Tell the story of a bird making the journey home, and what awaits them there.

6.      When it rains we can stay warm in our homes, but animals live outside. Tell the story of an animal that tries to stay dry in the rain. How do they do it?

7.      Spring is a time of growth. How have you grown over the past year?

8.      If you could only live in one season year round, which would it be? You would still have school and holidays, but the weather would always be the same as it is in either spring, summer, fall, or winter.

9.      It’s the time for spring cleaning. Does your family participate in spring cleaning? What do you think you could do to help?

10.   Did you know that bees are the reason we have flowers and vegetables? Write about a world with no bees.