Sweet Snow Days
Posted by Amy on 04 Feb 2009 | Posted in: Holiday and Seasonal, Inspiration and Motivation, Life After School
Ah, the unexpected day off! These are the days that students live for. As a teacher I secretly loved snow days too. Even though it meant reworking the weekly lesson plans and returning to overexcited students, I enjoyed having that one treasured day to do whatever I wanted. The chance to sleep in, the opportunity to catch up on daytime TV, or (dare I say it) the chance to clean the house in solitude–it felt amazing!
Please tell me that I am not alone! Surely there are other snow-day lovers out there! Tell me how you like to spend an unexpected day off from school. Or has it been so long since you’ve had one that you don’t remember?
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I really love snow days. So far we have had only 2 this year. I want many, many, many more snow days. We have school until late June even if we have a mild winter. When I hear we might have SNOW I will do the Snow Dance.
If I find out we are closed for the day, I go back to sleep until the kids wake me up. I make a hot breakfast. Then we bring blankets downstairs and snuggle up on the couch to watch cartoons together. I love to watch cartoons with my kids. It makes me feel young again.
Sabrina, We read the story “Roxaboxen” which is in Yuma, Arizona. We use this for Reading as well as talking about maps in Social Studies. I just thought it was a coincidence and wanted to mention that. Do you know of Roxaboxen?
I too love snow days by the way! But agree that it makes me feel even more behind in my plans than I already do with all the testing this time of year. We (here in NY) get 5 days in the beginning of the year and if there are any left, they get added on to another break. If we go over the 5, they start to take days away from our Spring Break..and I do not like that.
We are up to 11 this year and winter is not over yet. I like the first few and then it gets old real quick especially when school was supposed to end in May and now has been slid to June. I used my days to write lesson plans and get waaaaay ahead. We lost power for 8 days and the only thing I had was computer powered by battery.
Well, I live in Michigan. The last couple of years we’ve had several snow days. Yes, they are enjoyable at the time, but we still have to have so many hours of school each year. We no longer count days, but hours. So normally we have about 4 or 5 days at the end of the school year to make up. We never have to report on snow days. There would be no way we could get there. Michigan is so broke that many of the roads don’t get plowed for days. And we normally have to go to school into June and do not have air conditioning. We have spent many a day with temps well in the 90’s. I bet Yuma has air!
Enjoyed my day.Slept late and watched T.V. with my daughter in 2nd grade. Played games and hung out.Baked some cookies that I had purchased for a rainy day.It was different then the weekend because you try to do the things you didnt get done during the week and a Snowday was a surprise…
Use it to enjoy the gifts you have right infront of you.
NO SUCH THING AS A SNOW DAY IN FLORIDA BUT WE HAVE HAD HURRICANE DAYS! BUT WHEN THEY HIT MOST OF US ARE IN SHELTERS. THE ONES THAT STAY AT HOME SPEND MOST OF THE TIME BOARDING UP WINDOWS, MAKING SURE WE HAVE SUPPLIES AND ARE GETTING READY FOR THE BIG BLOW. BEEN WITHOUT ELECTRICITY FOR 2 WEEKS AT A TIME AND SINCE WE HAVE A WELL THAT MEANS NO WATER EITHER. SO ENJOY YOUR SNOW DAYS WOULD MUCH RATHER HAVE THEM HERE TOO!
Lillian…what grade level do you teach ? I might have some I would be willing to pass along. Let me know your email address and I will get in touch!
P.S. To the rest of you….I just had six snow days but I had no electric. My home got down to 40 degrees. I didn’t even get to enjoy the time off. Which makes me so sad. I live for a day to sleep in with no urgency to leave the house.
Living on the outskirts of South Atlanta in GA, we VERY SELDOM see a snow day. Last year, it snowed 1 day…..and it was a Saturday! BUMMER! However, I was so thankful that it did snow, because I knew it would be such a treat for my students! When we came back to school on Monday, I asked them to bring in pictures of what they did that day, and I brought them pictures of my husband and me spending time with our granddaughter that day (that was the first snow she had seen.)They got to write about their pictures and journal what they did. Now a snow day on a school day….after playing in the snow for a while and making a snowman, I would bake cookies, have a book to read, and open the blinds in my sunroom to see the beautiful white outside!
We have had 8 snow days and 2 days off due to winds off of Hurricane IKE. We love our snow days, but we do have to make up every day we miss. We are not given calamity days. In the state of Ky. our students are required to be in class 177 days a year. The school districts decide how to make up the missed days. If we miss 20 days or more, we can apply for emergency deferral. But we love those snow days. Cooking, cleaning, and watching the snow.
We usually get between 4 and 6 snow days a year, depending upon the amount of freezing rain and blowing snow in the mix. However teachers are expected to get to their school or to the school closest to where they live. We usually have about 20 to 30 students arrive and we rotate them from teacher to teacher (those that were able to make it and the visiting teachers) so that we may only work with the students for 20 to 40 minutes and then we have the rest of the day to work in our classroom without the students— I usually get lots of filing done, marking and units of work prepared so really look forward to them! Our schools are never closed on a snow day as the school board does not get its grant money if they close the school–this has been a cause for concern as many of the teachers at my school have to drive a fair distance from their homes. In our last contract we negotiated for teachers going to their closest school to their home and this has alleviated a lot of stress.
Snow Days! Yeah Right! Not here in South Texas, our district has no such day. Our students just have to wish and make their own paper snowflakes.
I LOVE ALL DAYS WHEN THERE IS SNOW AND I CANT GO TO SCHOOL! HAHAHA JUST KIDDING, WELL ITS TRUE, BUT I LOVE MY CLASS THEY ARE A GREAT LEARNING BUNCH.I TEACH 5TH GRADE AND THEY, EXCEPT FOR ONE ARE ALL HARD WORKING.
We had our first school day of snow yesterday, and yes, we had school! It was a little nerving getting there, but once we were settled, we incorporated the whole day’s lessons centered around snow. I had my little ones (first/second grade) create “snow day” murals with descriptive sentences, we made snowpeople, using blue(boys) and pink(girls),we practiced Math strategies using cotton balls, we threw cotton balls up into the air to make a pretend snow in the classroom, and we read “Snowy Day” and ventured outside to make tracks in the snow. Most teachers only had a fraction of their class to show for school, but I had 17 out of 20 to come. I love it when my students even love to come to school on a snowy day! It’s reminds me of the reasons I chose to be a teacher!
Snow Days!! What are those?? I live in Yuma Arizona where it had already been above 80 degrees and we are only in February. Our summers are hot (120s or higher) so not we have not be able to experience a snow day and we do not get to stay home just because it reaches record heat days. SO ENJOY THEM!!
I love snow days. We have had two so far and I agree, its better to know the night before. I enjoy cooking, reading, never doing schoolwork and just being. We had one yesterday and today a funeral day so its been nice. Any more this year and we will have to make them up.
I got the opportunity to have one of your fabulous books on my hands and I got fascinated. I am a teacher from Peru, and I would like to get some books, but how can I get them? Right now, I am working on the ships as a youth staff.
Thanks
we NEVER get a snow day..The Mayor says if he can get to work, the teachers and kids should..Of course, he SAYS he takes the subway..Those of us who do not live in a borough with adequate public transportation have a heck of a time of it. Many of us work in a different borough from which we live. Think the last snow day was about 5 years ago right after a holiday week off…so it was easier to keep the schools closed. It had snowed 18 inches.so for those of you who have snow days—-ENJOY!
I hear you! I love snow days. We don’t have many of them here in North Carolina, but when we do, its my day to cook meals for the week, clean my home and organize things for my daycare kids. I also get in some much needed ‘me’ time!
YEA FOR SNOW DAYS!!! So far we’ve had three (although one was actually an Ice Day and two were Cold Days). So far we won’t have to make them up so that makes it even better! Finding out the night before is the best because then I can sleep in!
I am like a kid on snow days. The only bad part is making them up. I take time on snow days to catch up on things I don’t normally have time to do, or just sit and veg out on the couch.
I love snow days too. Sorry to say that we haven’t had any this year so far. We have days built into our calendar so that we don’t have to make anything up. I wonder if they’ll let school out early in May if we don’t use any?!?
Hooray for Snow Days!! This year we’ve even had COLD days when it didn’t get warmer than -15! I like them when we know about it the night before. When I learn about it in the morning, why is it that I sit glued to the TV watching the running scroll of closings, even when I know we’re on it???
I like to bake on snow days. I wish I liked to clean. Of course I like to watch the plows go by.
I do like having the snow days to do what I want to do. It does give the children the chance to play outdoors which we are not allowing them to get outside. But having all these snowdays this winter has put our school going almost to the end of June.
I LOVE snow days! Even though we have to make the time up, it’s better than dealing with cranky students! The winter months are hard for them. They want to run and play for hours, and so working all day inside (including the dreaded inside recess) doesn’t help them get the wiggles out! Besides, I like end of the year workdays/extra days with the kids to get some of that extra cleaning done for the next batch of students. Who doesn’t like to stay home where it’s warm? Three cheers for snow days!
The only thing is as teachers were have to stay till late June . Snow days are ok but if we have more than 3, the days go on in June.