Okay, so I did not take as many pictures as I wanted to in what we did with the students the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter break...but I will give you some ideas without pictures!
Since we had 3 weeks, we decided to celebrate a holiday each week. We started with Hanukkah, then Kwanzaa, then Christmas. Here are some of the highlights we did for each week, like I said-sorry no pics!!
Hanukkah:
-We traced the students hands with their thumbs together in the middle, looking like a menorah. Their thumbs were higher up together in the middle and their four fingers were spread out on either side. They used number stamps to count each candle and then used a bingo dobber to light each candle.
-We made Star of David out of popsicle sticks we counted out 6 of them first using a 6 frame I made, then painted them and adults assembled and they identified the two triangles that made the stars. We added glitter in the end-glitter was everywhere.
-I did a felt board counting game where I made a menorah, candles and flames and read a poem I found online in which we counted each candle and put them up. The kids absolutely loved it and caught on very quickly.
Email me if you want any ideas...since I got a lot of them from other people I don't want to re-post and take their ideas without giving them credit and I am not looking them all up again!
Kwanzaa:
-We made a Kinara and had flames with each of the principles written on them, talked about each principle and glued them onto our Kinaras.
-We made Kwanzaa plates where we sponge painted paper plates in the colors red green and black. I made some easy sponge painting brushes by cutting cheap sponges into 1 inch squares and then adding a clothespin on the end for easy grabbing. We practiced stamping instead of painting with the sponges, and identified the colors and made a connection to Christmas colors.
-We made Kwanzaa mats with marble paint (box lid, dip large marbles in the paint, put the mat in the box lid, add the painted marbles and let the kids shake and roll them to make designs on their mats) Once the mats dried, they practiced cutting slits in either end to make it look frayed at the ends.
-Once again I did a similar felt board story with a Kinara, candles, principles, and a counting song.
Christmas:
-We made ornaments out of pine cones with glitter, they liked this :-)
-We made Christmas trees out of different sized strips of green paper they had to put them in order from biggest to smallest then they could decorate their tree.
-We made Christmas cards with Santa handprints: paint thumb and top of palm red, inner palm skin tone and fingers white and upside down it looks like Santa and they wrote to whoever they wanted to about Christmas (some wrote to parents, some wrote to Santa, etc)
-Another felt board story with color identification, counting and predicting (opening gifts under the tree)
Now the project I have been working on this week: a light box for my students! Light boxes are beneficial for various reasons for students with disabilities but one reason I wanted one is because my secretary recently gave me all the letters from our old sign outside (similar to a gas station sign with individual letters) so I wanted to be able to use them because they are so awesome! I found this idea blogging around...
So I got a plastic container, an under the counter light, white duct tape, spray paint (white and silver), painters tape, construction paper, and the saran wrap that clings really well (it's kind of foggy looking)
First, I attached the under the counter light with duct tape to the lid of the box which will be the bottom of the light box. I cut some of the duct tape that was covering the light because I didn't want it to look "stripe-y".
Here is the light off and on.
Then, I covered the bottom of the box with construction paper and painters tape and spray painted it white first, then silver after. I think the reason they said this is so the light will reflect better off the metallic color. I messed up the white spray paint :-( I am not good at spray painting.
Here is the lid once it dried and I took off the paper.
Here it is completed! It looks great but I have one suggestion which is why I needed to use the cling wrap...It was TOO clear, you just look down and see a light. It's supposed to be foggy and just illuminate the surface in light. So, I would suggest buying a box with a foggier bottom (which they had but of course I was like, "I want it to be clear!" and it ended up being a mistake). So, I ended up taping in some cling wrap to give it the illuminated foggier look and it turned out great. I might end up using duct tape around the frame of the light box because I really messed up the spray paint but just a personal choice. A good choice when choosing the plastic tub is finding one like this one that has an edge along the bottom so things will stay on the light box portion and not roll off.
Also, you need to cut a hole for the cord to come out so it sits flat. My husband has yet to do this part of the project, haha.
Also, here is a little something I did at school for headphone storage. I bought a cheap tension rod because we have this window frame between the two classrooms near my student computer. It was a good idea! I probably got the idea blogging around, or maybe this was an original from me. Oh well, it works great and frees up space. I am thinking of other suction ideas for storage around the computer area but have not come to any conclusions yet.
Finally, one last idea, sorry I did not take a picture, I will take a finished product picture, I bought a dish rack for my dry erase board storage. The boards fit in each dish slot and then the cup for a sponge will hold the pens. I also bought infant mittens as erasers for my kids little hands. I will probably hot glue some pom poms on the ends of the markers as erasers too.
Have a great rest of break, I will post more pics once we get back to school-I am off to Vermont to go skiing for a week :-)
