Hellooooooo, Winter Break! Oh how much I’ve looked forward to seeing you! Here are the highlights from week 16:

1. Chair Bungees for Restless Students: I discovered a really great, inexpensive, QUIET, unobtrusive fidget tool for the classroom – chair bungees. There’s not much to it, you just wrap a bungee cord or some kind of sturdy, elastic material around 2 chair legs. This gives students something to lightly bounce their legs against during class. Hopefully, this won’t disturb their neighbors or make any noise, but will provide sensory feedback for the student and a mindless outlet for fidgety behavior. I like that it occupies their legs instead of their hands, which we need for work!

2. Ready for January! I am all set to come back for break, which is a great feeling. I don’t have any correcting or lesson planning to do over my winter break, which means I can focus my energy on my family and on my dissertation. My calendar and assignment board are all set!

3. Phonics Spelling App – I found a great new app for our students struggling with phoneme-grapheme mapping, sight words, and basic foundational skills. Of course this is only one component of our multi-faceted reading intervention program for students who are reading 2 or more levels below grade level. The Simplex Phonics Spelling App costs $5, so I am working on locating the funds to purchase this app for our small-but-growing list of identified students. My hope is that I can introduce them to the app at school, but they will practice the app at home and with their parents. I installed and interacted with the app for a while, and I liked that it offered lots of support and that it didn’t seem too ‘babyish’ for our 6th through 8th graders. Here’s hoping this is a winner for our students!

4. Spirit Week! Leading up to winter break, we have had a ‘Spirit’ or ‘Dress-up’ day each day this week. Monday = Pajama Day / Tuesday = Twin Day / Wednesday = Blue Day to honor our custodian with cancer / Thursday = Nerd Day / Friday = Red Day. I love dressing up with a theme, so of course I was on Cloud 9 all week!

5. Like a Rock Star: I made the front page of TpT! I was so excited to see this!

So how was your week? I hope you are already (or thinking about) enjoying your Winter Break!!! See you in January 😉