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?
26 Comments |
Subscribe
|
Email This
26 Responses to “Sweet Snow Days”
More Comments Pages: [1] 2 3 » Show All Comments
More Comments Pages: [1] 2 3 » Show All Comments
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.