B I R T H D A Y S

What a beautiful card to give your students.  A card with a beautiful thought that really makes them know that you are celebrating their BIRTHDAy but more importantly that you are even acknowledging them as a real person.  I think sometimes students sit in a class and don't feel that a Teacher truly recognizes and cares for them.  That should NEVER happen.

H A P P I E S T   T U R K E Y

D A Y  T O  A L L !!!!

Enjoy your day as your family celebrates the tradition of THANKSGIVING in your special way. Each family may have a little different recipe, or way of presenting the meal and/or when it is eaten.  The most important thing is that we are together with family and perhaps friends, now in our trying times, celebrating in peaceful ways. A holiday that was meant to bring peace between two different types of people.  That is a special thought to remember and would also be a great time to discuss it.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

V O L U N T E E R I N G

At Thanksgiving time is a great experience for students who have more then others to VOLUNTEER to collect can foods, used clothes and toys that can be given to families that wouldn't be able to have a Thanksgiving meal.  They might not have a decent pair of shoes to wear, or proper food to eat during the week that we are always so accustomed to.  Having a toy given to them would delight them so since they probably haven't been able to buy one in the longest time.  Doing this for these families will make them feel so good that they made a family or families have a wonderful Thanksgiving meal just like they are going to have. 

COLONIAL  TIMES

Reading about the life of the people in Colonial Times with my students certainly receives many reactions from them and one being sheer disbelief.  "I can't believe they had to live like that."  "I feel so sorry for them."  They had such a terrible hard life."  They see the pictures and read about what their daily life consists of and then think about their daily life in comparison.  So then we discussed do you think the children in Colonial Times liked or disliked their life???  They were mixed on that question.  Some saying they didn't know any other way to live so they were comfortable with what they were doing.  Others said they were basically treated so poorly that they had to have hated it.

ATTITUDE

A child with a positive attitude as compared to a negative attitude will find learning to be easier for them no matter if they are an A student or a C student.  When you have a student who constantly gives an attitude--"another paper, I don't understand it, it is too hard, I don't like that kind of work", they have set themselves up already with a NEGATIVE way they are going to do the work with little effort and I don't really care I just want to get finished with this paper.  If on the other hand they treated it with a positive attitude, I know how to do this, I will work this quickly and carefully and be done with it.  It would be so much easier for them.  They have to get rid of that CRUMBLY ATTITUDE so that learning will become easier for them and not fight it and make it harder for them.

F  R  I  E  N  D  S

To watch your class out at recess as compared to sitting in the classroom is such a different experience.  You watch the friendships evolve from the beginning of the school year.  Some stay the same, some change dramatically,  and some fluctuate every couple of weeks.  Those that fluctuate every couple of weeks cause some painful experiences among those members.  Those are your little cliques.  Where some weeks you are in the clique and all of a sudden you are out of the clique.  That is where the classroom Teacher needs to have some play acting (in the classroom) and have the class act out scenes portraying students doing this kind of action and showing ways it hurts people.  Then have the students work in groups to come up with different ways to make sure that this doesn't happen anymore.  Then work out a system that if it does continue to happen that the students that are responsible for it will have consequences to pay for it.  The students will also come up with those consequences.  They could be for example no recess the next day, extra homework, no classroom jobs, writing a letter to their parents telling them what they did, etc..