Merry Christmas to Me!

The days before break are pretty humorous. Half the student body has checked out physically and left on their Christmas adventures, and the other half has checked out mentally. Most of the students who walked into my classroom today were like, "What? We're actually doing something today in class? We should just cancel school and have a Christmas party!"

Hmm...

As I talk with other teachers, most of them read the Christmas Carol earlier last week and they are watching the movie over these next few days (thank you, common core, for including a standard where students must compare and contrast two different genres like a play and a movie). However, I had one of the veteran teacher here take my textbooks that had "The Christmas Carol" in it because she liked the version in the "old" books better.

Some other teachers are doing vocabulary exercises, reading Christmas stories, talking about Christmas traditions, etc.

I'm not going to lie - I tend to develop the beginnings of an ulcer when I have to plan around a holiday or break. I still HAVE to teach and my instruction has to be grounded in the standards, but most of my students won't be present (physically and mentally), so I don't WANT to teach a standard that they are REQUIRED to learn that is going to put them behind the rest of the class...

So, I got creative.

Ever heard of the book "A Creature Was Stirring?" It's a great children's book that another teacher showed me that tells the traditional Christmas story, "Twas the Night Before Christmas," but changes the point of view and includes snippets of asides from a little boy who tells the reader that the story is wrong! That a creature WAS stirring and that creature was him!

With my 7th graders, we read the story and talked about point of view, analyzing how the traditional story changed because of the contributions of this little boy (definitely grounded in the core, people). I then had them write letters to Santa from the point of view of a 5-year-old. After they did that, they had to write Santa's reply to their own letter from Santa's point of view. Those cute little 7th graders ate it up. Had a blast. I turned on some Christmas music (as a procedure, mind you. I said they were too loud if I couldn't hear the music, so it was a way to keep the noise under control.)

Of course, who walks in for 5 minutes while students are scribbling letters to Santa like 5-year-olds? Hello Vice-principal. So nice to see you here.

What would this lesson have looked like during these observations? Yeah - I think we all know the answer to that question.

Seriously? We're going to do observations the day before Christmas break? Hmmm.... Okay.

I just had to let it go. I was so overjoyed to see students having so much enthusiasm over this lesson - even my students who are IMPOSSIBLE to engage were writing and laughing and volunteering to share. So I'm calling it a success (no matter what that silly little 5-minute observation said).

And....Drumroll please... I think I've reached the point where I can't hope to do the same kinds of activities with my 7th graders as I'm doing with my 8th graders. There was no way I was about to read a Christmas Children's book to my 8th graders who are way too cool for school. So I found an article from the New York Times about the career of becoming a Santa and how Santa's actually have to go to school to learn how to be a good santa! I thought it was cool. And my 2nd period class of 8th graders thought so too.

4th period? We're not worrying about them today, but I'm ready to put my desks back into rows specifically for that ONE class. Sad how one of my classes can ruin my set-up for group work and collaboration!

I'm going to team up with some of the 8th grade teachers a little more to work off of some of the activities they do in their class because, heaven knows, my 8th graders can't always handle the energy of some of my lessons. But I'm adapting, so yay!

Some days work. Some days don't.

Today - well today worked charmingly.

Now, what to do with a 25 minute class period full of students aching to get out of school (while still having standard objectives to meet)? I guess I better Dash Away, Dash Away, Dash Away to get creative again!