Happy Holidays!

We had a great couple of weeks talking about the holidays. The students did well today for the schedule being so out of place. I hope you take some time to look through the holiday gifts and crafts that came home. The students work so hard on them and were proud to bring them home.

The Christmas Trees were a hit this year. Thanks to me son's preschool teacher, Ms. Nancy, for sending home this craft with him so that I could "lesson lift" it (new term thanks to a #spedchat friend). The activity was fairly simple. but worked on so many of the basic skills that the students are working on. The students first cut along 3 straight dark lines draw on the large triangle. Using the dark marker helps them focus on the correct area to cut. Next (and under my guidance), the students built the tree from stump to top putting it together kind of like a puzzle. After that, the students added shiny star stickers (which were a big hit) to their tree to make it festive. Lastly, each student either wrote their name or first initial on the back. I assisted by writing Merry Christmas on the front.


I hope you enjoy the time off with family and friends! I know I will enjoy the time off to gear up for 3rd and 4th quarter! Stay warm! Stay safe!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

PS - School resumes January 3rd.

Holiday Traditions

Check out our poster about Holiday Traditions!

Be sure to leave us a comment about what holiday(s) you celebrate and what traditions your family has for the holidays.

Happy Hanukkah!
                         Merry Christmas!
                                                  Happy Kwanzaa!

Winter Holidays

We are in the thick of Winter Holidays! I always enjoy this unit every year because I get to know a little bit more about the students as well as family traditions. 

Last week we focused on Hanukkah. The students enjoyed listening to books about Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. One story that was quite a favorite, Eight Nights of Hanukkah, provided a repetitive text which was programed onto the Big Mac switch. Each student was able to help "read" the story.

This week we will be focusing on Christmas and the traditions that family have during the holidays. We will discuss a little more about traditions and holiday events that take place around the city.  Each day we will add a little more to our Glogster poster about holiday traditions. By the end of the week, we will complete the poster and share it with our Room 5 Friends from Cleveland. We will also share it on this blog to get feedback on our post as well.


What holiday(s) do you celebrate? What is your family holiday tradition?? Please comment below and include your location so we can see where different traditions my come from.

My family celebrates Christmas. One of the traditions with my family is to go downtown and look at the lights and the tree on Fountain Square. On this night, we do something very special.....we have ice cream for dinner!! Yes, we get ice cream at Graeter's (my favorite ice cream ever!) and eat it on Fountain Square. Afterwards, we drive around town looking at all the Christmas lights. ~Mrs. Broxterman

My Edublog Award Nominations are in!

After being swamped with work-work as well as grad school-work, I finally had time to sit down and think about nominations for the Edublog awards (just under the deadline ...phew!). I still feel that I am very new in this world of social media; however, the impact that some of the people I have met, some of the posts I have read, as well as some of the comments I have received over the past couple of years has definitely changed me as an educator. For this, I am taking time to share a few of my nominations in hopes that others see the benefit of being connected as a group of globals educators. If you would like to nominate some great educational resources as well, check out Edublog for more information.

Best Individual Blog - The Innovative Educator

Best EdTech/Resource Sharing Blog - Cybraryman’s Catalogue of Education Websites

Best Teacher Blog - Miss Kolis’ Room 5 Blog - an amazing resource for parents: newsletters, collection of app reviews, theme activities, classroom resources

Best Twitter hashtag - #spedchat and #maet (Masters of Ed Tech at Michigan State University)

Best Free Web Tool - Google and the collaborative tools available, such as Google Docs and G+ hangouts

Best Educational Wiki - UDLtechtoolkit

Global Read Aloud ~ Week 5 Review

This week marked the end of the Global Read Aloud 2012 and the conclusion of our Charlotte's Web activities. This week we finished reading the adapted book and completed our comprehension book. As a concluding activity, we incorporated a science lesson about spider webs into the mix. (Thanks to Mrs. Pence for sharing her scholastic science sheets with us. It provided a great literature connection.)

We learned:

• how a spider web needs to have specific components in the web structure (bridge lines, anchor points, and the spirals)
• that the web starts out a liquid and turns into a solid
• that although spider webs look fragile, they are actually quite strong

To illustrate and reinforce the concepts of the spider webs, we created our own spider webs using wax paper and liquid glue (such as Elmer's). This hands on activity allowed the students to create their own webs while reinforcing the parts of the web. With assistance, the students first created the bridge lines, then we attached the anchor points. Next we created the spirals. Lastly, we labeled the parts of the web while the glue was wet so that they would stay in place. Some students even chose to draw and add their own "Charlotte". Some students completed this activity within their 2nd grade class. Other students completed this activity while in our classroom. See below for the of our great student spider webs.

In addition to the "glue" webs, we also took some time and encouraged students to draw his/her own spider web on the SMARTBoard using the same structure as mentioned above - creating a web with bridge lines, anchor point, spirals, and maybe even a spider! Check out the examples below.