Leading Up to Winter Break

We are so close to having a break! Also, I always find that once we make it to winter break, the rest of the school year flies by somehow. This first chunk of the year is often the hardest in so many ways. Once the routines are established and community is built, the rest of the school year can feel more manageable. But every year and every class is different.

The lead up to winter break can be so exciting and often coincides with snow days, winter concert or assembly practices, lots of illnesses/sharing germs, and other disruptions, so your students will definitely react to everything that is going on. Keep in mind that some kids do not like breaks as they miss school and really thrive on routine, or might not have secure access to food at home or a stable environment for so many reasons. I always openly acknowledge to my students that I have mixed feelings about whatever my plans will be, letting them know I’ll miss our wonderful daily routine together, I might be nervous about traveling (especially during the pandemic) or my baby not sleeping in a new place, but I’m also looking forward to seeing family. Modeling processing and acknowledging mixed feelings can be very helpful if any of your students are anxious or similarly conflicted.

I’m sure this goes without saying, but remember that not everyone celebrates holidays, be it Christmas or any holiday. I’ve always provided family surveys at the beginning of the year so families can share any traditions that are important to them, and I will ask my students about family traditions, but try not to assume that they are centered around Christmas or winter. Snowflakes or festivity around snow (this is the season of hoping for snow days after all) is a great way to bring some seasonal festivity into your class without using religious symbols. Holidays can be hard for some families, especially anyone who has recently suffered a loss or a big change. And again, some families don’t celebrate, so assuming that everyone does might make students feel left out or alienated. 

Some festive activities that I’ve used in the past to get through December and channel some of my students’ excitement/restlessness/general energy are below.

• Making snowflakes to decorate the classroom. You can make this as academic or artistic as you like - we’ve written adjectives on snowflakes, used them for a Math lesson, written poems on them, or used art supplies to embellish them!

• Coming up with “gifts” for people in the building. While cards are great, what else can we do for others? Students are very creative and will think of acts of kindness and appreciation that will surprise and amuse you.

• Share family winter traditions! If possible, invite family members to join. I’ve done this in person or over Zoom and both ways were lovely. 

• Have a hot cocoa and reading party! We’ve let students bring in stuffed animals or pillows and spent the morning before the school winter concert reading. It’s such a nice calm way to head into the break and gives you an opportunity to catch your breath and make sure every student has something to read at home over the break.

• Read Elijah’s Angel: a Story for Chanukah and Christmas by Michael J. Rosen (again, you know your students, so if you do have students who don’t celebrate who might feel alienated by this book, find something else to read!). I love that this book models sharing what feels comfortable for you and your family and navigating this while caring for friends. 

• Clean and organize to get ready for the break/new year! I’ve found that students LOVE cleaning up the classroom especially if you allow them to use cleaning supplies. They can work in teams and each be responsible for one part of the room, or have the reward of using a duster somewhere in the classroom once their desk or personal area is clean and organized.

• Learn about Winter Solstice Traditions around the world. 

• Learn about Human Rights Day. This is also a nice counterbalance to a focus on presents or possessions.

• Do some prep work to make coming back in January easier for all of you. This might include laying the groundwork for some good activities by talking through some ideas with your students and physically getting some things ready to make it easier on yourself. 

  • I often have students write New Year’s Resolutions in January and I always make those copies in December so I have at least one activity ready to go when I come back. 

  • Another fun activity for coming back to school after a break is writing book reviews or book recommendations. I tell students we will do this when we return and then they have an extra incentive to read over the break!

Happy December and almost winter break to all the teachers (and students)! Hope you have some time to rest and take a deep breath as well as moments with loved ones and delicious food. 2022 has been quite the year.

Remote or Hybrid Learning Resources & Ideas

Sending love to teachers and families as we tackle yet another round of uncertainty and anxiety! I’m trying to take things one day at a time and remember that I’ve done this before when my students and I were not vaccinated. It seems like I will be in school in person with increased mitigation and vigilance. However, it also seems likely that some students and staff will need to stay home due to infection, so we may be teaching some students on Zoom and some in person at the same time. I experienced this set up for most of last year and found it to be the most difficult and least effective set up as it makes teaching and learning harder for everyone, but at least this time around it will be temporary and I have all my experience from last year to draw upon!

For those of you who are finding yourselves unexpectedly teaching online for the immediate future, here are some Remote Learning Ideas that I came up with when this all started in early March of 2020. After I taught online for some time, I came up with these Useful Virtual Tools that we depended upon daily as we made it through last school year.

One high success and meaningful activity that I always try to do with students in January is writing New Year’s Resolutions. This post is from back when I taught 5th grade, but here is a link to a video read aloud with some great ideas for younger students. This activity works well both in person or online (or a mix!) and you can provide an organized planner for your students, have them share orally, have them draw and write, or have them record a video (or more - the options are truly endless).  If your students are worried or anxious about the changing situation, new year’s resolutions could also be a way to address this as you work to brainstorm strategies and share information. There is so much that it is outside our control, but acknowledging uncertainty and students’ potential concerns about it often helps students feel seen and sometimes more secure.

Read alouds are always invaluable classroom tools, but they work really well for helping students talk about or process feelings. Sometimes younger students do better talking about how a character in a book might feel and suggesting strategies for that character. Also, read alouds work when all of your other technology fails and students can always do responses on paper even if they are online. There are some great picture book read alouds and more general tips in this post about Mental Health.

And of course, here are some ideas for Games to Play During Remote or Physically Distanced Learning! Games are a great way to do so many things and being online, distanced, or some combination of the two doesn’t mean that we have to stop having fun, bonding, and working together.

Hoping everyone got some time to relax, catch up on sleep, and feel more like themselves over the winter break.

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2018 New Year's Resolutions in 3rd Grade

We have an annual tradition of writing New Year’s Resolutions with our students, and adapted our ideas from the past this year to work for our 3rd graders. We enjoy this writing piece for many reasons: it often yields inspiring and hilarious responses from students (two examples pictured), it’s a great way to review our class contract and reflect as we come back from the break, it’s a quick and high success writing piece as we get used to being back at school, and of course, it’s important to model reflection and goal-setting for our students.

This year, we used the beloved Kid President video that we wrote about in our New Year’s resolution post last year with our students and their 7th grade buddies. For Writer’s Workshop with just our 3rd graders, we started by watching the New Year’s Brainpop video. It tied in nicely with our geography focus in Social Studies, and reminded students that everyone celebrates (or chooses not to celebrate) in different ways and there are many New Year’s holidays.

Next, we modeled writing a resolution by first brainstorming, introducing the vocabulary word “resolve”, and finally coming up with a plan for how to achieve our goal. We reminded students to look at our class contract for inspiration, and asked them to think about trying something new in 2018. We gave students a graphic organizer with space for brainstorming, and then had them elaborate on two of their ideas by explaining them in detail and then going through the steps of a plan to make them happen.

Two of our favorites are pictured, but we also loved hearing about students trying to be kinder to their family members by giving more compliments, being a better bookworm by making time to read more and try different genres of books, being more patient by remembering that everyone is different and that’s okay, and so much more.

"How do you like me NOW, parents?"

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions this year? How do you get back into the swing of things in January? Do you have your students do any goal setting or resolution writing for the New Year? We’d love to hear from you!

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