Monday, December 10, 2012

How to survive the last week before Christmas in a room packed with thirty candy-cane wired kids. Just turn down the lights, project The Christmas Carol up on your classroom wall – and read!


     Let's be realistic.
    This is not going to be a standard week in which you study the history of the Pilgrims or math multiplication tables.
    This is going to be a week of pure Christmas cards, present making for mom and dad, dancing, singing, caroling, slurping down eggnog and apple cider and looking around the corner for Santa Claus.
    And yes, on thursday or friday Santa will probably show up.
    No serious learning is going to happen in any American classroom this week at all. But wait – maybe your students can have fun and actually learn something, too.
    Just go to your computer, go to KBN, and open up KBN's exciting flashbook edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, complete with its marvelous original 19th century illustrations.
    Then dim the lights and read this classic tale together.
    Dark. Scary. Fun. Shocking. And thrilling.
    But also good for classroom conversations about history and maybe building some new vocabulary, too.
    You can read the story to your students or, much better, let them all read the story to you.
    Happy Holidays from KBN!