Advent Traditions

It's hard to believe that the season of Advent is already here.  It seems that I was caught a bit unprepared and had to rush to uncover the Christmas decoration boxes from the basement in time to light the Advent wreath on Sunday.  Now that my daughters are a bit older, I think it's time to start a few Advent traditions. So each night of Advent this year, we will light the Advent wreath and follow along in this book, The Christmas Countdown: Creating 25 Days of New Advent Traditions for Families.  I purchased the book on Amazon and downloaded it to the Kindle app on my iPad.  It was quick, easy, and inexpensive.  So far, we've had some interesting dinner table discussions from the prompts given in the book.  And I love that we're repeating old traditions, like lighting the Advent wreath and setting up our nativity set, and creating new ones as a family. 

The First Thanksgiving

Since I won't see all 500 students this week, I'd like to wish everyone a safe and blessed Thanksgiving holiday.  And since I'm a fan of American history, here's a link to Scholastic's "The First Thanksgiving" interactive website.  There are vitrual field trips of both Plimoth Plantation and a Wampanoag Homesite, information about the Mayflower voyage, and resources about what the first Thanksgiving Feast might actually have been like. Enjoy it with your family, and enjoy the blessings of this special holiday!

Cyberbullying

 Image taken from ua.edu.

When I decided to become the computer teacher last spring, I knew that I had a responsibility to teach students how to become digital citizens.  The technology that students are growing up with today brings with it a new set of issues that parents did not experience in their youth.  I'm talking specifically about cyberbullying.  Students today cannot get away from bullies like they used to--they are followed home from school by way of cell phones, iPads, Facebook, and Twitter.    I will be beginning a series of lessons for all students in grades one through eight about cyberbullying--what it is, what it isn't, what it does, and how to prevent it.  I am using materials adapted from Common Sense Media.  Below are links to .pdf files of the Smart Board lessons I'm using with the students in class.  
Screen Out the Mean--used for first through third grades.
What's Cyberbullying?--used for fourth and fifth grades.
Cyberbullying--used for sixth through eight grades.

Enjoy the View!

Here's a photo I took a few short weeks ago from my classroom window. I took the photo with my iPhone 4 and edited it using the Instagram app.  If I took a photo from the same vantage point today, the beautiful orange-red tree would be bare.  Amazing how quickly the season passes.  It's a good reminder to stop and enjoy the colors while they last.

Michigan MI Learning

If you own any Apple products you are likely familiar with iTunes.  Did you know that iTunes has a section for teaching and education called iTunesU?  Michigan has it's own K-12 learning portal called Michigan MI Learning.  Some of the materials are teacher-created, but there are many opportunities for submitting student-created work.  Check it out!  You can learn most anything these days with a laptop/iPad/netbook and an WIFI connection!