Holiday Links

Recently, my posts have been more philosophical in nature, but sometimes it is nice to just share fun links with each other. And, since it is the time of year to give, here are my three favorite sites for the season:

1. Make Your Own Snowflake - This site allows you to cut-out a snowflake online. Then, you can save your snowflake to have on your computer or print at a later time. I have done this site with my own 3 and 5 year old boys and then we cut-out real paper snowflakes together. This is a site that kids and adults can enjoy!

Link: http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

2. Elf Snowball Fight - This site is from the Elf movie with Will Ferrell and Bob Newhart. You can throw snowballs at any of the elves, but be careful not to hit Santa! Again, a nice activity for everyone of all ages!

Link: http://www.elfmovie.com/swf/snowball_fight/index.html


3. Elf Yourself - or someone you know! This is a cute site for adults that allows you to turn yourself, or someone you know, into an elf. You can upload as many as four faces, record voices and send your dancing elves to all of your friends! Moms and Dads can have fun with the whole family choosing pics of each other and watching the end result. Here is my family doin' a dance!

Link: http://www.elfyourself.com/

So...hope you enjoy some of my favorite holiday sites this year! If you have any, I'd love to see them!

Is it Better to Give or Receive?

Wow! Where does the time go! Here we are nearing the end of the first trimester already and it seems as though the year had just started a few days ago!

With the holidays approaching, I have been thinking about the theme of giving. Surely, regardless of the holidays we celebrate, there is an exchange of gifts. Some small and some large. There are gifts that we give that are lavishly expensive, while others come with no monetary cost but are invaluable to those that receive them.

So, at this time of year, I would like to invite you to participate in a virtual, online Pollyanna (of sorts) Traditional Pollyanna gift exchanges would require names to be placed in a hat and drawn at random. Then, you would give a gift to the person listed on the piece of paper you blindly chose. Usually there is a set maximum value placed on what you will spend and it would culminate with all getting together to exchange the gifts.

For our Pollyanna, I say we do this:

1. Everybody's name is in the hat, but instead of choosing one name, you choose everyone's name.

2. The gift that you give should cost you no more than $0

3. Instead of one day to exchange our gifts, we can give our gifts any day between now and our holiday break.

4. The meeting place: you guessed it....right here!

So, what gifts can we give to each other? Well....it's up to you. Maybe you could share a strategy that has worked for you in your classroom with a subject area. Maybe you share a story of encouragement...a success for you or someone you know. As teachers in a learning community, we all have gifts to share. The most valuable gifts we have to offer do not have a price tag, but may be just the right gift for all us...invaluable to others.

So...what gift can you give with us this season? I am eagerly anticipating 'opening them up.'