November....Thankful for Much

It's the last day of November, and our school district is having Snow Day #2 already!  Two days in a row the snow has fallen and the wind has blow it into drifts everywhere!  Sounds like a good time to write a blog!  November has flown by, as it always seems to do as we enter into the holiday season!  

Third Graders are preparing two songs on their recorders for their performance on December 13.  We have now learned five different note fingerings:  B-A-G-high C- and low E.  
Students did an activity that is part of the Candy Corn Music Puzzle Bundle by Tracy King on TPT.  The bundle includes puzzles for Dynamics, Notes and Rests and Recorders.  In this activity, students matched up note names, notes on the staff and the corresponding fingering on the recorder.  It was an enjoyable way to learn!

The highlight of our month was the entire school performing for our Veterans on Veterans Day.  We sang "Thankful for the USA" written by Teresa Jennings.  It's a fun, upbeat song, and we enjoyed learning it.  With the audience, we also sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", a song by American writer Julia Ward Howeusing, the music from the song "John Brown's Body".  Students sang three verses to this patriotic song, and from Kindergarten to Sixth grade, it was a favorite!  Students dressed up in their patriotic attire and proudly honored the veterans who were able to attend.  Many classes helped decorate the gym, with many many art projects.  It was great!

A special part of the day was that the Veterans stayed and shared lunch with the students.  Two of our grandchildren were happy to share some special time with Grandpa!

"I'm The Fastest Turkey" has to be students' all-time favorite musical game to play at Thanksgiving time!  The game is an echo game, with elements of Duck Duck Goose involved.  My beautiful turkey puppet is used as a prop.  Mr. Turkey gets lots of petting too!  For me, it gives me a chance to hear the students sing alone, to assess their singing voices in areas such as pitch, rhythm and dynamics.  I think that even high school students would play this game if given a chance!

Students in grades 4-6  in technology class have been blogging this month.  They are finishing up blogs on a favorite book they have read recently.  If you have one of these students in your family, ask them to share their blog with you!  Third graders will begin blogging.  Students are required to apply what they have been taught in other subject areas when they are writing....good grammar, correct spelling, appropriate sentence structure.  There are different specific requirements for each grade level, corresponding to what's required of them in their other classes.  

Integral to writing is the skill of proofreading.  Students not only proofread their own writing, but work together with a partner to proof each other's work.  It's always good to have another set of eyes look at your work!

The holidays provide a variety of games that not only work on computer skills such as mouse control, Internet navigation, typing etc. but also skills from other academic areas.  Kindergarten students reviewed counting by 1's, 5's and 10's while completing this turkey activity.  

Students in all grade levels continue to improve their speed and accuracy when keyboarding.  "Awesome posture" is something we visit about frequently as well!
Holiday Concerts are coming soon!  Hope to see many friends and family there to share the joy of making music with our students!

I'm the FASTEST Turkey!

Tis the season in the music room!  Not only are we prepping for our annual Christmas program, but it IS the week before Thanksgiving, so we have been sneaking some fun Thanksgiving activities in our class time as well!  This week we began class with a fun movement idea from the Bulletin Board Lady, Tracy King - Thanksgiving Freeze Dance.  We loved dancing and then freezing to different poses projected on the SmartBoard by pilgrims, Native Americans and other fall characters.  Tracy has one ready to go for Christmas too...so check it out!  Christmas Freeze Dance and Creative Movement.

 There are several other Thanksgiving songs (5 Fat Turkeys, Shoo Turkey, Over The River, Hip Hop Turkey etc.) that we like to sing, but I do believe that there is none other that the kids love more than the fun game, "I'm the Fastest Turkey."  All grades from K-3 love playing this game, and I think they could play it the whole class period if I'd let them! This is a game similar to duck, duck, goose, but with singing and in this case a beautiful Folkmanis turkey puppet.

In technology we have been in the holiday mood as well.  K-1st and 2nd graders have been doing a variety of online puzzles and games with turkeys.  One of the more challenging ones was Sort My Tiles.  Students had to match up the pattern on tiles that were presented to them.  They didn't get a new tile until they had a good match.  Turkey Swap is another game that is quite a challenge.  Many students took 200 or 300 moves to complete the task, while others actually were in the 80s and 90s!  Try it and see how many tries it takes you!

3rd and 4th grade technology students have been learning about the tools in Microsoft Word as they create a poem  entitled, "If I Were A Thanksgiving Turkey".  Information includes how they would smell, taste, what they would be stuffed with, what they would hear...well, you get the idea.  We have some pretty creative poets! Learning tips and tricks about page borders, inserting graphics, and editing font style, size and color are the techie bonuses of this project!  Here's a Third Grade sample!

Students in 5th and 6th grade technology have been sharpening their blogging skills this month.  We are blogging about the Daily Life of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag.  Students research on a Scholastic website about The First Thanksgiving and compare and contrast different aspects of the daily life of the two cultures. Here's a Fifth Grade sample:

Thanksgiving Traditions....Fact or Fiction??

We assume that many of our American Thanksgiving traditions originated in 1620 when the Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving.  Not so!  Watch this video from Mental Floss to discover some common misconceptions!

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving everyone!

The Thanksgiving Chair

Many of us on Face Book have been posting each day this month about things in our lives that we are thankful for.  I always enjoy this, as it is a blessing to be reminded each day of  both the little and the big things in life that we are honored to partake in.  As we end the month of November, my goal is to not forget each day to be THANKFUL for what is in my life, even if it is a thing of pain or sorrow.  I know that God has a perfect plan for each of us, and I trust Him!  This video will sum it all up.  Do you have a Thanksgiving Chair??

How I see it...

Sometimes it all depends upon your point of view.  Life can be an uplifting experience for you or it can be depressing.  It's all up to ME!  "I" make the difference.  How I view  things makes a difference.  I choose to see the positive, the good in situations and in people.  Yes, there is evil in our world, there are people who choose to reject the blessings of a relationship with God.  BUT, there is so much good, so much to be thankful for.  So  many blessings!  Here's an example of just that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishes for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all who are reading!

Will you be watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in-between checking the potatoes and stuffing the turkey?  Aren't those balloons that we see awesome!  According to Wikipedia:

The balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade come in three varieties. The first and oldest is the novelty balloon class, consisting of smaller balloons, some of which fit on the heads of the performers. The second, and most famous, is the full-size balloon class, primarily consisting of licensed pop-culture characters. The third and most recent is the "Blue Sky Gallery," in which the works of contemporary artists are transformed into full-size balloons.

I didn't even know there were three different "classes" of balloons!
One thing that I watch for lately is our South Dakota float!  It's always fun to see Mount Rushmore National Memorial floating by!  The float is named "Mount Rushmore's American Pride" and also features the Black Hills National Forest and Badlands National Park.  Hopefully this will encourage more tourism to our area.  This is the third year that this float has appeared in the Macy's parade.  Don McLean, singer and songwriter, will be aboard the float this year.  Keep your eyes open for our South Dakota float!

Albuquerque Turkey

It IS Thanksgiving week!  My kids at school love to sing along with this video.  Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Resources

I'm on a teacher resource roll this week....here's a BUNCH of Thanksgiving ideas...and in the "pearltree" format.  Check it out!  Pretty cool!  Thanks to Teacher Reboot Camp for posting this resource!
Find all the Thanksgiving resources and tools in the Slide presentation listed here!