I’ve touched upon this subject before: students pulled out of school for family vacations. The last time I mentioned it, I was on the verge of actually doing it myself. This time, we are on the verge of the week when it seems to happen most, Thanksgiving week. Already, most teachers are looking at three days of school at best. Locally, students merely have to show up for two days. And I know there are more than a few parties thrown in during that time.
When I commanded a classroom of my own, there was a family well-known for taking their two children on some sort of fabulous vacation every year at Thanksgiving. As soon as one child’s name appeared on your roll in August, you could use a Sharpie to mark him absent the week of Thanksgiving. There were no ifs, ands, or buts. One year, they left for their trip to Europe the Thursday before Thanksgiving! And while I will not disclose my opinion on whether these were students who needed all the class time they could get, I will say that my grade book wishes they’d stuck around.
It’s a tricky subject. Family time is precious; a family that wants to spend time together outside the daily regimen of school, work, activities, and obligations of all sorts is to be commended. Yet there is also the fact that teachers aim to make every moment in the classroom a moment of educational value. Do we really want to be forced into giving up the few school days of Thanksgiving week because there’s just no point in trying to be productive?
How do you plan for Thanksgiving week? Do you lighten the load? Do you plan lessons that are educational but sneak in some extra fun? Or is it just another week, just shortened a bit? I’d like to know, and so would your fellow teachers. Speak up. Speak out. Let your voice be heard.
I teach fourth grade and we have our Pioneer Day on Tuesday, which is the day before Thanksgiving Break. It is a fun day where the kids can dress as pioneers, eat pioneer food, and play pioneer games. Monday will be an odd day as we will just be wrapping up a few concepts and playing math games as we just had a math test. It does however give us a chance to catch up on things we normally don’t have a lot of time for, like reading our class novel “The BFG.” Surprisingly, all of my students are going to be there on Tuesday!
We only have 2 1/2 days before Thanksgiving and 2 days the week after (Thurs, Fri). I will have at least 2 students gone during both weeks. I actually took the 2 1/2 days before off last year to go on vacation with my family so I see both sides of the issue. I try to give my students on vacation assignments that are tailored to their experiences. For the ones that stay we do some extension activities we don’t usually have time for.
I teach sixth grade at a middle school. I add at a middle school because this is the first year we have had the sixth graders at a middle school. We use to be a K-6 elementary school but due to budget and other issues the district made the change.
So, also going along with budget cuts we have 14 furlough days. THe entire week of Thanksgiving we have off, unpaid but off.
I Love It! Gone is the huge absent student problem that use to be such a issue at this time. I treated the week before like normal and even assigned a book project to complete over the break.
THis is the second year of furlough week and the missing kids, absent brains in the ones that are there those 2 days before Turkey Day. After 28 years of teaching these last 2 years of the whole week off makes the holiday less stressful for everyone.
A blessing from budget cuts.
This year we have only two days because it is the end of the trimester, and Wednesday is a staff day to do report cards. I was told about one student who will be going out of state to see her Dad. I gave her some make up work, but there isn’t a lot because I encouraged her to be finished last week. I had two other students that didn’t show up on Tuesday. (If you don’t tell you don’t get work?) No they will have to make up the work we did.
Tuesday was an interesting day with lots of energy, so I took 10 minutes and pulled up the Go, Chicken Fat, Go exercise song and played it twice getting lots of energy out and then we were back to work!
As far as the traveling part, is there anything that we teach that can’t be taught through a trip? (sorry if I offended anyone) A real world scenario is a very beneficial opportunity that is an awesome advantage for any family that can afford it. I just prefer that they tell me before, so I can think of some way to tie it into what we are doing. Have a great Thanksgiving!