Memories and traditions

This morning, I woke up early and scurried to the basement to help Santa's elves wrap a few packages for Christmas.  I started last night, but nosy curious children derailed progress.  Usually, we pick a fun outing for the kids to the YmCA or gymnastics for a Kids Night Out...but those are not really an option this year.  I know that it is only November 29th, but I do not like to wait until the last minute.  In our house, my husband buys 85% of the gifts throughout the year when he finds a special item or good deal.  I have no idea what is the totes until he reveals the items to me.  It like Christmas for me.  It is our family TRADITION!  As I wrapped in the silence, I had time to think and reflect and pre-write this post.

I know that this year will be different.  The mall Santa is "protected" in plexiglass.  There are fewer holiday events in our communities.  I know that people are stressing about who to invite to their holiday dinner.  But different can be a good thing too...it allows to find new traditions and create new memories. And I do not feel obligated to fill every weekend with running around...more quiet home time for our family.

In STEAM, we are celebrating the entire month with something that I am calling De"STEM"ber.  I totally borrowed this from other teachers, but made it my own.  The activities can be done at school, at home, or a combination!  I do not want to say too much, but I am SO excited to start them on Tuesday at school!?!? Often, the older students bring their laptops to STEAM and we code on Code.org and listen to instrumental holiday music in December.  However, I feel that we are all over screen timed currently, so I think that this will a good switch! 

At our house, we are keeping many items the same, but I am trying a new holiday/advent book with activities.  I try to keep my blog secular, but at times I do mention my faith.  The book is called "When Will It be Christmas".  I am excited for the activities, verses, and reflection.  

In the past, we have tried another book "The Advent Storybook", but it was deep and not always of interest to the younger children.  

We also have an elf that visits our house.  Each year, we have a theme.  Last year was "Games Reindeer Play" this year is "Creating" a Magical Christmas.  We will be making him a mask, "digging" into the holiday season (mini digging kits from the dollar tree), and a few other crafts along the way.  I might also use some of my pins from Pinterest.  

Look for updates on our De"STEM"ber adventures in STEAM and our family holiday traditions.

What are you doing to keep up with traditions or create magical memories this year?

Home learning continued

Many adults as children set up their dolls, stuffed animals, etc... as their "class".  It was something that we did for FUN.  As the "teacher", we might find one sibling to participate, but most of the time it was just us and the toys.  You would create a math problem on some flat surface maybe a board.  You would call on random "children" hoping for an answer.  "Mr. Bear what is the answer to 7 + 3."  Then the teacher would change their voice and answer for Mr. Bear.  "It is 10".

My crazy Saturday morning AH HA is that asynchronous learning feels the SAME WAY!  Many of my teacher friends are "talking" to their students by name when they are no where near by.  One teacher friend even compared it to romper room and Molly and her Magic Mirror earlier this week.  Online teaching feels like this.   Many teachers are BACK in the empty classrooms.  YES - they are NOT teaching from home like the spring.  We are reporting to work everyday for our entire contractual day.  We are talking to our empty desks.  Teachers like me are recording videos hoping to be heard on the other side.  It is TOUGH!

However, I feel that I got two "wins" this week.  A sweet parent note about how much their child like the activity and a happy student doing his science picture! BOTH are sweet and touching for a variety of personal reasons.

Hugs to all my teacher friends across the nation!  Keep finding the WINS and keep pushing through there is a Susy, Johnny, Bobby, etc. who hears you and appreciates those videos or live meetings (even if they do not answer you!).  

Covid is less than ideal for everyone, but let us celebrate the wins not the losses.  No one knows tomorrow...so one day at a time!

I even found a news article about one teacher who has done this!  You might find some stuffed friends sitting in my STEAM room next week :)

Teaching to animals

Home Learning Week 1

 Last week on November 5th, my building had to go into "red" phase or a temporary two week shut down.

I had just finished my big election unit and was in the middle of introducing code.org to grades 3 and 4.  2nd grade was learning to use the camera on their computer.  Grade 1 was starting paired programming (covid style). K was working on tangrams.

Most of these units could not be transferred to distance learning.  So it was time to re-think our choices and options.  Thank goodness that mentally I have been preparing for this...read my last post for that intuition!

K - 2 continued their work on learning about fire safety using a choice board from the National Fire Protection Agency.  Sparky Choice Board


3rd grade was able to explore Kodables.  With the use of Clever, it auto signs students in.  Over all the students who have tried it give it 4 out of 5 stars.  It teaches the basic concepts of coding including loops and conditions in a game format!

Here is our data so far:  

You can check it out since it is a "FREEMIUM" site as well.  KODABLE

4th grade is working on code.org as normal then transitioning into EduTyping and Kodables.

As a teacher and parent, this week has been a challenge since on Wednesday I returned to the empty classroom while my children are at home.  Luckily, my husband works from home...but it makes for some interesting moments like this morning meeting picture of TJ.  

1 more week of red....then 4 school days before Thanksgiving!

Voting, fire safety, and leaves

 This year looks very different in a STEAM room during a pandemic...technology has the been the goal of the 1st 9 weeks.  Practicing skills in the event that we end up at home has been a big priority as well as figuring out safe ways to engineer.  I am excited by some units coming up in December!

This week, I created some video lessons using LOOM and uploaded them to Clever for K-2 (and it worked!) and TEAMS for 3rd and 4th.  It worked except for the one class that was not scheduled correctly (and I was out for dentist appointments).  1 out of 26 is not horrible!

Overall this is allowing me to see if they can watch my "lesson" and work independently on a task.  The answer is mostly NO, but it lets me tweak and modify as numbers rise in our county!  

Students are also getting to experience voting.  My 4th graders often remember walking to the gym in 1st grade to go and vote.  I hope that a few of my current 1st graders remember voting in STEAM in 4 years!  The website link was created by Pebble Go.  It is a secure website, so they also get to see the fun process of when you click "I am not a robot"...then you get to pick all of the traffic like pictures or the hills or vehicles.  2nd - 4th grades do this as individuals at their desk.  K and 1 come and see me to make their "vote" while the others watch a video on trees.

In addition, 3rd and 4th grade "researched" the two candidates to make a more informed decision when voting.  We used two different versions of Pebble Go Biographies and talked about databases vs. googling information.  It was a challenge for most of them to take the information off the computer and put it on paper!

K-2 did fire safety by exploring Sparky's website.  This is a favorite activity! They also listened to information on the two presidential candidates.

In mid-October, we took a technology break for a variety of reasons.  The topic was leaves...we discussed chlorophyll and photosynthesis.  K and 1 read "Leaf Man" then created their own "Leaf Man" with a leaf tracer then adding special details.  2nd - 4th created 3 dimensional leaves.  It was an inspiration of two bloggers together that let me create the tracer and a do-able pattern!  
Stlmotherhood blog and Makes and Takes blog

Here are some leaf pictures:

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