Thanksgiving Snapshots!

Ahhhh, Vacation!  I love spending time with family and having a jam packed schedule of fun activities or absolutely no plans at all (my favorite)!  This year, I spent most of my Thanksgiving on the road!  Lots of driving up and down I-5! But it was great to be with my family and enjoy seeing all the cousins together.

I needed this break more than any year in recent memory!  Yes, it's been one of those years in the classroom.  Don't get me wrong!  I love my students!  Each one, individually, is sweet and wonderful, but when all 22 get together I feel like a first year teacher, all over again!  :)

We all know that after the week away from school, we need to head back into the classroom with a good game plan!  How do you plan on harnessing all that energy and actually teach? Here are 5 tips for harnessing your students energy and putting the focus on learning!

I know my kiddos are going to be happy to see each other and will need some chatting time together. I'm the same way when I see my friends, aren't you!  Don't fight their natural urge to connect...embrace it!  I like putting some fun tunes on and have my kiddos "mingle to music!"  Similar to musical chairs, when the music stops, students find the closest student to pair up with and share one thing about their vacation.

Next, we will meet in our community circle and share one thing with our shoulder partners.  After sharing and listening, students will report out about their partners vacations!  This holds them accountable for being a good listener!  They always giggle when their friend talks about them, too!  :)

Who traveled the farthest?  We'll make a list of all the places we traveled and then look at those places on the map!  I also introduce the word, "stay-cation"!  The kiddos that stayed at home feel pretty special to have their own word! This is a fun conversation starter!

How did we travel?  We will graph how we traveled for our vacations and make observations about our data!

Last, but not least, now that we've shared all of our ideas and refreshed our memories, we will complete a graphic organizer and get ready to write an informational paragraph about our vacations!

                         

 I created these to use on Monday!  You can grab your free copy here!

I hope these ideas help your students get back into the swing of things and help you ease back into work from a wonderful vacation!  Happy Be-lated Thanksgiving!