Drumroll, please! Ba-da-ba-da-boom! Today I have two spectacular announcements!
First, this is the 300th post on The Mailbox blog. Ta-da, yahoo, and a great big thanks to you for being a valued member of our online community. You’ve made The Mailbox blog the place for teachers across the country (and from other parts of the world!) to come for teaching ideas, suggestions, and inspiration. Your input is very much appreciated. Thank you!
In addition to celebrating our 300th post, today also marks our final giveaway of the holiday season. For this double celebration, I am cleaning out my prize closet. 🙂 Every time we get ten new commenters on this post, we’ll give away one prize. This means you have a one-in-ten chance of winning! What types of prizes are cluttering up my closet? Let’s see! I have a $20 gift certificate for The Mailbox, a book from The Mailbox Books, a minisubscription (three issues) to The Mailbox magazine, stickers and notepads, lotions and such for overworked teachers, and copy paper. Ready to win?
Here’s today’s topic! What teaching themes, topics, or skills are you planning for the month of January? Please include your grade level in your comment. And, just for fun, include your state or country too!
Ready, set, share!
Diane
PS: The giveaway concludes at the end of Sunday, December 19.
Congratulations to all six of our winners! That’s Jessica R., Linda E., Nancy H., Kay K., Ronda T., and Dana. Check your inboxes for prize information, and thanks for commenting!
wow how exciting . Jan I am planning snowman , winter theme . Am in mn usa and of course it’s been winter here for a few months but been really busy with Holiday’s and then we have break . So we will do Cold winter animals , snow man and flakes . Mixed ages 2 to 4 yr old . They will contine working on writing , cutting and graphing skills .
I plan to do a friendship theme in conjunction with MLK. We will work the idea of to have a friend, be a friend.
I will be doing a unit on the Chinese New Year. My students have always enjoyed seeing what “animal” they are.
We will also be doing a unit on MLK and incorporating character ed. We do a lot of snowman activities, including an indoor snowball fight if we earn a reward!
I teach Kindergarten in Texas and we are doing a winter unit – we will have a winter day (and because we don’t usually see snow) we pretend to have a snowball fight with old socks, we have a snow storm with torn up paper, we ice skate with wax paper in the hallway, read lots of winter books and drink cocoa while reading our books, and make snowflakes out of coffee filters. We talk about animals that hibernate or live in cold areas (like penguins and polar bears). We also teach MLK, and 100th day activites (at the end of January).
And we all LOVE Mailbox too. We could not do it without you. I teach prek and I am planning a winter theme, Penguin, Mittens,Prince and princesses, snowmen, reptiles and birds. I teach 3 and 4 year classes. I of course will be doing letters, math,writing and literacy.
I am in Michigan, US. Freezing here
We are going to be starting unit on weather and we are also going to start learning about Zimbabwe. I homeschool my 7 children. This year’s grades include pre-k, K, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th. We are in Oklahoma.
I teach special ed, K-6, in Arkansas. Our winters can be mild or cold and we often do not get snow until late January or February. We will do a winter unit at the beginning of the month and 100th day activities which will include lots of reading, math and a blizzard of writing activities.
I teach first grade in Kansas. Kansas Day is on January 29th. We will be studying about our state and our state symbols. We will also be studying Martin Luther King Jr. and winter. In math we will be adding and subtracting double-digit numbers and counting coins.
I teach computer literacy and math intervention to grades 3-5 at the two elementary schools in Wisconsin. In computers, we are going to be working on internet searching skills. In math, we will be working on time in fourth grade and mean, median, and mode in fifth. As a school, we are calling January “re” month as we re-model appropriate hallway behaviors as kids sometimes forget these over the break!
For the month of January we start out with a week of Snow, then we do a week of Snowman (including Frosty of course) The last 2 weeks we do Bears. We conclude with a Teddy Bear Picnic. A movie, bear treats, Teddy grahams, Honey Cereal, Juice box, a biscuit shaped like a bear. It’s soooo much fun.
I teach Special Education 3-6year olds. We live in Michigan.
We’ll begin January with a snow/winter unit.Lots of snowmen/women,snowflakes,science experiments,etc. that first couple of weeks back. Then a short unit on Martin Luther King,Jr.,followed by penguins and other polar animals. We’ll begin a unit on telling time and using
money..both of which are difficult concepts for First Graders. It helps to use plastic coins and play “store”
with dollar store items,or white elephant things from home!
I teach 1st grade in Iowa. We will be doing Martin Luther King, Jr., 100th Day, and Chinese New Year for our special topics. We always have so much fun on the 100th day of school! We will also continue to work on reading, writing, and math but will relate it to all these themes.
I teach 1st grade in N.Carolina. We will study the winter theme focusing on how to dress properly for the weather. We also have a unit on arctic animals and also discuss MLK Jr.
I teach 3rd grade in Ohio and January is our big month to begin memorization of multiplication facts. I use an old Mailbox idea…we build a banana split with each scoop and topping earned for a level of facts learned. After we build our pretend splits, we indulge in real ones with a banana split party!
Our Kindergarten class of 24 will be studying MLK, Winter (snow and snowflakes although we haven’t actually had snow in years) and penguins. As we move on with reading, I hope to challenge my students with new word families.
Snowmen!!! Our reading unit is Weather so it is perfect time to integrate cute and wonderful snowmen into the work that the children do! Also, peace as we celebrate MLK, Jr.’s birthday!
I teach First Grade in frozen Wisconsin. We will be studying penguins, snow, food chains, among other things.
I am a substitute for K-6 at our local elementary school. Topics do vary with the various grade levels. Stickers would be a very nice addition to my substitute arsenal! I am presently teaching my preschooler and we are learning about winter, snow, the #4, the letter H. We are gluing white cotton to the roof of a house (for the letter H) and working on different textures. We continue to work on scissor skills and my son will be cutting out the house.
I plan on teaching geometry, fractions, snow topics (considering we live in the snow belt), government, and Polar Animals!
I teach 3rd grade in Ohio.
I plan on sharing information on penguins. My students love to read about them. I teach first grade in cold Michigan. With my Smartboard, I can literally bring the penguins into my classroom.
Hello from South Texas!
My pre-k class will be studying community workers and travel/transportation.
Within those themes, we will continue to learn our letters & letter sounds, number identification, counting, rhyming, beginning sounds, et al.
I teach kindergarten in New Mexico. For January I am planning on continuing our weather unit, doing some snowman themed things in math and reading.
We will learn about MLK and character education.
Chinese New Year which is in February this year I think..so maybe I’ll hold off on that.
It will be a busy month…as they all are.
I teach Kindergarten and 1st grade in Gorin, Mo. I am planning on teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. In math we will start learning about money! I also plan to do some weather related experiements.
I teach a kindergarten first grade combination. The literacy themes I plan to teach are below:
-New years traditions both Chinese and American
-Penguins
-Martin Luthur King (appreciating differences and stating their hopes and dreams for the future)
-100th day of school
Congrats on the 300th post. I am in a Life Skills Special Ed. Classroom (Grades 3-5). Since we’re in the Northshore area in Massachusetts we talk about winter weather & dressing accordingly. In January, we also discuss the new “calendar” year as well as start to learn about MLK which leads into the presidents for February. We also make bird feeders to hang outside…not many birds this time of year but the ones that are around need to eat!
Happy Holidays!
I teach 3 year olds and PreK. We will be covering things to do with winter (snow, ice, dressing for cold weather, things to do in winter)and fairy tales. We will be working on the concept of opposites and matching; writing our names, letters, and numbers. I am in Indiana.
I teach 5th grade in Minnesota and since my birthday is in January we spend the month getting to know Ms. L., it always turns out to be a lot of fun for both the students and myself! ; ) lol
I teach 3 and 4 year old language delayed students. For the month of January we are doing the story “The Mitten”. We will base everything from math to science and language activies on this story. I live in South Carolina where snow is very scarce so I was able to order some instant snow that has the texture and feel of real snow. I place this in my sensory table and it stays cold for the entire month. students are able to “play” in the snow and we use it as a language building activity where we discuss the attributes of the snow. Another thing that I do is I took two large white flat fitted sheets, cut them out in the shape of a mitten and sewed the two together. The students then react the story and get the opportunity to climb inside the mitten as the animals did. I also do a sorting item with different colored mittens.
I teach preschool in Michigan. In January we will be working on snowflakes, snowmen, winter animals and mittens. We will also work on letters, letter sounds and numbers. We will be reading winter themed books and practice writing our names, numbers and letters. We also practice cutting and glueing. We also do music and movement which the children really enjoy.
In Jan. we do winter, snowmen and penquins. Living in Florida often makes it challenging. We decorate the classroom with snowflakes and snowmen/snowwomen wearing bathing suits. We write about what snowmen do at the beach. Kids love it!
I have a Licensed family daycare with a preschool program. The themes for January will be Penguins, Mittens, How things work and Monsters.
I teach Kindergarten here in Arizona and my favorite unit of study in January is the Antarctica. The Antarctica is rich in marine (sea-living) animals, with the largest animal ever, the Blue Whale down to the smallest life of microscopic plankton. And don’t forget those cute penguins!!
I’m doing penguins and other polar animals. This is for 2nd grade in Nevada.
I teach VPK and live in the sunny state of Florida. We are having cold weather. I hope it stays this way so we can have a great winter and polar animal theme. We use the instant snow which the kids really love. We will also do MLK and friendship. We will begin practicing our last names and finish up counting to 100 for our celebration.
I love January and all of the fun things that I have planned. When we come back from our Christmas break we begin the year off with The Mitten- the children love to act out the book and wear character necklaces. THe characters go into a large mitten and then pop out when they sneeze. We also add the discovery of penguins and snowmen to our kindergarten activities.
I teach kindergarten in Michigan. In January, I teach a theme about winter clothes. I use the book “Frozen Noses”. We talk about the book and I have the students match words written on sentence strips with the item of clothing. My centers are also based around this theme.
I will continue doing state testing prep. and making sure I will be ready for my kids test (I mean they’ll be ready!) so stressful…
I am a family child care provider, in January we study about black & white. Each week is a theme. Penguins, polar bears, snowflakes, nigh time.
The children ages 2& 3 always have so much fun.
I have made many games and activities from ideas that
are in the Mailbox, I love this magazine.
I live in MA, USA
Y’all are awesome! It’s great to hear what you have planned for the new year. Keep the comments coming! Our prize giveaway has reached four prizes and I’ve got plenty more in my prize closet! (We will notify winners via email Monday morning, December 20.)
We woke up to snow and sleet this morning in North Carolina. Love the snow! Not too crazy about the sleet. Stay warm and safe!
I live in Alberta, Canada, and in January, we often have days where the busses don’t run. Having 1/2 a class and different kids appearing one day but not the next presents some challenges. A few years ago, I started a project whereby students make their own board game. They write questions from every subject and their board game has to be an original idea. It’s the kind of group project that can work if some students are missing and the kids love it. After the games are all done, kids play them and evaluate them themselves. I’ve done this for both Grade 5s and 6s.
I live in Missouri and January brings winter, snow, penguins, poloar bears and other animals to my classroom for units of study. I am a looping teacher for K-1. In K we did a unit on penguins. We made penguin costumes and walked up and down the halls like a penguin. We talk about the weather, snow etc. In first grade, we will do a research paper on polar bears and other animals. We read a lot of non-fiction books, take notes on note cards and then write and publish our findings. We have fun and learn lots!
I happily teach preschool in Michigan. Our January themes include all-things-snow-related (snowmen, snowflakes,snow attire,arctic animals). We actually get to play in the snow as well as discuss it. We make an igloo in our classroom by hot gluing milk jugs together. The kids are crazy about it!
I teach preschool in Herriman, UT. Our theme for January is “Dinosaurs AND It’s Cold Outdoors”! In addition to our study of dinosaurs, we will be learning about winter, snow, ice, how to keep warm (including winter clothing and quilts)!
I teach 4 year olds in Hawaii, on the Big Island. We have 2 mountains that are over 13,000 feet, so we get snow on the top, but warm beaches down below.People drive up to the snow, pack their trucks, then come down to sea level and build snowmen in their yards, which melt pretty fast. Our themes for January are winter, Eskimo life and cold weather animals. We go on a field trip to the local grocery store, and get a tour of all the back areas, including the freezer. I make sure the kids don’t take their jackets, so they can feel what “cold” is really like, and we get to see our breath in the cold too. When we are through, we go have shave-ice ( like a snow cone), so we can pretend to eat snow. We put mittens and scarves in the dress up area, and we pour white tissue paper scraps in front of a fan for a snowstorm.We do art projects with snowmen, winter scenes and white shaving cream.
I teach the 4’s and we like to explore snow & ice, penguins,and animals in winter. Some of the fun things we like to do are making snowman measuring sticks out of paint mixing sticks so that we can measure the snow. We do the crisco experiment with small baggies. I fill one bag with crisco and insert the other inside out so that they will seal and have the children put their hands in ice water and then use our glove to show how penguins stay warm. We act out “The Mitten with headbands made from the author’s site and we even make a bear cave out of a large box that we get to decorate. What year would be complete without making ice cream for our snack. I use rock salt and ice in baggies or you could get the ice cream ball that the children roll back and forth to each other. There are so many fun things to do!
My fifth grade ELA classes will come back to a large discussion about their new goals for the remainder of the year. They will list their goals and how they are going to achieve their goals, and we review these often to make sure they are on the right track. I use a large birthday bulletin board, and they put their goals on their birthday month along with their birth date. The students love seeing other students goals and like to cheer each other to be successful.
Cartersville, Georgia, USA
In January I start a unit on Pirates in my 6th grade class. We read Treasure Island and have several activities. We make a Jolly Roger, a Treasure Map, and we watch the Movie at the end of each section of the book. It is great fun for all the students.
Waco, Texas
In January I will be teaching about Plymouth and the arrival of Europeans immigrants and indentured servants. We’ll create a foldable project and integrate both reading and video into our lessons.
I’m in Washington state and teach 5th grade at the middle school level.
We will be starting January with Snowpeople/Winter. One of our curriculum that we use is Letter People and we will continue with those themes. Such as Everyone needs foods, everyone needs exercise, everyone has a home.
We’ll start with New Years, a science unit on Matter, learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, a unit on winter weather, a begin looking at rhyming words and word families!
In January the themes will include New Year & what it means, Arctic Animals, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and beginning book reports. I also have the joy of assessing students individually for the end of the 2nd 9 weeks. I teach first grade in North Carolina.
I teach preschool and we will be discussing Snow and winter and using Jan Brett’s book the Mitten to help us also discuss small/big and in/out.
In kindergarten we will be working on the season of winter. We include the mitten in several versions to compare and contrast on a large mitten. We will also study the emperor penguin and try to pass eggs from one set of feet to another. We will compare our size to the adult penguin.
We will make pattern block snowflakes and make snow to play with in our sand table.
The kids love to learn about penguins and snow. We have a snowball fight at least twice in January. (We use cotton balls)
I teach kindergarten in Missouri. January will be a fun-filled month of learning as we sing songs, read stories and participate in lots of activities centered around the following themes: winter, mittens, penguins, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the 100th day of school.
I teach preschool in Missouri. Our first theme will be snowman and winter. Then we will go back to our alphabet weekly themes. Which we will start back with letter h.
I am working on snow, cold, and penguins, like so many others. We are also going to do gingerbread men. The different stories, the cookies, (including, but not limited to graphing what part of the cookie do you bite into first? And, we will make a large cookie that will mysteriously run from our oven, and we will have to go in and out of different classrooms to see where it runs to.)
This will be my first year teaching in Australia after having taught for 6 years in the US. The school year starts in February so I won’t have kids in January, but in Feb, I’ll look forward to teaching ‘Back to School’! It will be strange for February for me, but I’m looking forward to it 🙂 I’ll look forward to teaching winter themes in June/July!
Happy Holidays!!
We will be studying the founding of our nation’s government including the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution and all the compromises that went into it. Students will also study biographies and folk tales.
Hello!
I am a teacher at a small, private school in Greenville, SC that uses the curriculum Core Knowledge. I teach a combined 3rd/4th grade class, which of course presents a whole new set of challenges.
In our curriculum, I will be teaching the 4th graders about China’s Dynasties and the 3rd graders about the 13 Colonies. I have freedom within my language arts especially, and I teach the grades as a whole group during this time. We will be diving into figurative language next month, which will in turn lead us to poetry to put the figurative language in practice. This is always such a fun unit because after teaching it, for the remainder of the year we track how many examples of figurative language we can find throughout our reading.
I teach grade 4 in MA. We will read biographies and continue to study ecosystems and habitats. The kids love doing the animal project they will present in mid-January. Thanks for all the great ideas!
I teach Kindergarten and our major themes we are going to talk about are winter, Martin Luther King, Jr., and 100th day. My students are looking forward to creating take home booklets.