‘Tis The Season

I shared this video with my students yesterday, hoping that a wonderful Christmas story might inspire them to sing their hearts out at the Christmas Play. We had a wonderful conversation after watching the video about what had to happen in order for WestJet to be successful in this enterprise. But mostly we all agreed that this was an amazing thing that WestJet managed to pull off. I asked my students to consider one question, and I’ll ask the same question of all of you:

What would you have done? What would you have asked for?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, my lovelies!! And let me thank all of you for all the wonderful gifts you gave me for Christmas…and for the gift that each of you is in my life! Before I leave for mom and dad’s for our Christmas celebration, I wanted to share a word of warning for each and every one of you.

Don’t try this at home!

Advent Ideas

Sunday marked the beginning of the Advent season, so Monday in class we discussed what each of us could do to celebrate. We decided that one way we could celebrate is to perform one act of kindness each of the days leading up to Christmas, starting today. Today in class we came up with quite a lengthy list of possibilities. These are just some of our ideas; we know there is so much more that we could do to show kindness to people we know and to people we may not know. If you have any other thoughts or suggestions, please leave a comment here with your idea. Thank you!

Here is our list so far:

• Help the elderly put up their Christmas decorations
• Smile and/or wave at someone
• Let someone else go first
• Call or visit someone important to you (a note or card might also be a nice idea)
• Forgive someone who has hurt you, even if you don’t tell them
• Listen. Allow someone to share their troubles with you
• Help someone with their homework
• Ask someone “How’s your day?”
• Offer to help wrap Christmas presents
• Write a Hope Note

We created a separate list of ways we could help our families at home:

• Do extra chores without being asked
• Cook a meal for the family
• Make your own lunch
• Do the laundry
• Do dishes and/or empty the dishwasher
• Mow the lawn
• Rake the leaves
• Be nice to your siblings!
• Clean the pool (if you have a pool)
• Be courteous (I hope this doesn’t shock too many people at home!)
• Babysit your siblings for free
• Clean the house
• Be empathetic to your parents (they might have had a hard day)
• Say something nice to your parents
• Wash the car
• Wash the dog
• Take care of pets
• Share your “stuff”
• Don’t complain when you are asked to do something
• Respect your siblings space
• Say “please” and “thank you” (this could apply anywhere)
• Write thank you notes
• Talk about what you’re reading with your parents
• Engage parents/siblings in conversation

At this point, I feel I should share with any parents who might be reading this that your children created this list! What you do with that information is up to you. 🙂