Shopping for Thanksgiving Dinner
... and 2) origami turkeys, led by one of my volunteers!
It was basically 2 1/2 hours of organized chaos, but the kids had a ton of fun. After we finished with centers, it was time to feast! My parents rocked our potluck with loads of yummy donations, and the kids were thrilled to show off their handmade placemats, origami turkeys, Pilgrim hats, and Native American headdresses. My parents waddled home with full bellies while my class unwound with Thanksgiving songs and the always classic, "Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." As the kids giggled at Peppermint Patty and the "wah wah wah" of the grown-ups' voices, I felt happy knowing that some things are timeless. By the time the movie ended, my class had to go off to PE, then pack up to dismiss for the day!
I was ready to put my feet up and call it quits after such an exhausting day, but that wasn't about to happen... I had to finish packing because one of my long time dreams was coming true the next day... a trip to CAMBODIA! I've been longing to see the famous temples of Angkor Wat (and the Laura Croft: Tomb Raider temple!) ever since I moved to Japan five years ago, and now it's finally happened. On Thanksgiving morning, I got to watch one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen:
After the sunrise, I took part in a bike tour through some of Siem Reap's famous temples. My favorite might have been Bayon temple, famous for its many faces of Buddha:
Although I'm having a lovely time crossing off a bucket list item, I must admit, it's difficult spending my favorite holiday apart from family and friends. I haven't been able to spend Thanksgiving with my family since moving to Japan, but my friends and I typically have some kind of "friendsgiving" dinner. I'm looking forward to Christmas when I'll be going stateside for a visit for a week. The distance is challenging, but I'm thankful for the support and encouragement I get from my loving parents and siblings back home as I spend this holiday halfway around the world. I don't know what I would do without them.
I've still got a couple days left to explore Cambodia, and I have a full itinerary planned. I already know I'll be completely beat come Sunday when I'm back in Japan working on lesson plans for December! My classroom Elf on the Shelf, affectionately dubbed, "Ernie the Elf," by my class a few years ago, will be making his annual appearance next week and I can't wait. "Ernie" always finds a way to make things interesting in the classroom! I just put together this math activity, "The Hungry Elf," to go with my subtraction unit:
I'm planning to introduce it to my students next week after they meet Ernie the Elf. I made 45 word problem cards with take away and missing addend situations. The kids are going to use whole cookies and bitten cookies to act out the word problems and find solutions! For example, the problem in the picture above says:
Frank left some cookies for Santa. Ernie the Elf snuck in and took two of them! Now Santa has 3 cookies. How many cookies did Frank leave?
Students can act out this problem by using 3 whole cookies to model the cookies that Santa has left, and 2 bitten cookies to model the ones that Ernie the Elf took. Then, they can count all of the cookies to find that the missing addend is 5; Frank left 5 cookies. The missing addend problems include a mixture of "start unknown" and "change unknown" situations.
I'm going to have students work on this as a partner center so I can match my stronger readers with students who need extra reading support for the word problems. You can check it out in my TPT store by clicking the image above or by clicking here!
Should be ready to go in my classroom this week! I'm also introducing my Elf on the Shelf: Ways to Make 10 center this week. For my PreK and kindergarten teachers out there, you might want to check out Elf on the Shelf: Counting to 10! One holiday down... is it January yet? :) Hope you've had a happy Thanksgiving and find time to get some rest before the break is over!
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