Fun Fallapalooza Activities

November is a short month.  If your school system is like ours, it’s a short month with a lot of deadlines looming overhead.  Ok, I’m starting to hyperventilate… On top of the scary end of the year deadlines, we have little people depending on us to hit our ASCA recommended time distribution.  There are two themes that most people stick to for November.  Let’s talk about those!

1.) The obvious one here is thankfulness.  November kicks off the season of gratitude.  I don’t know about you, but I love teaching our students how to identify the big and small things in their life they have to be thankful for.  There are so many different ways to show students how to express thankfulness.  This year our students are having a blast doing this Thanksgiving Investigation.  What has surprised us the most is how easily adaptable it is for older and younger students.  This activity uses a powerpoint while students simultaneously complete a flipbook in order to solve a Thanksgiving word mystery.  The older students have LOVED the word game at the end of the lesson.  Best of all, it has opened their eyes to the everyday blessings around them that sometimes get forgotten or overlooked.  Remember when I said November is a short month?  Well, this lesson takes almost NO time to prepare, which makes the most of our stretched thin November schedule.

2.) November is also Career Development Month.  We live in a very rural community, and it is so rewarding to teach career lessons because it opens the students’ eyes to see career options they may have never considered.  You can see the employment cycle of the people in our community and how their career choice is based on what their parents did, and/or limited by opportunities available.  Watching the light bulb come on as these students consider career options for the first time MAY be my favorite part about this job.  This lesson uses the acronym, CARS (for Career Awareness and Readiness in Students), and hits so many of our career standards!  It is full of games and activities.  The students are loving it, which means we’re loving it!  We can’t get enough of all of the resources from vacareerview.org.  This lesson incorporates some of the activities from that website and perfectly weaves them into the super cute car theme.  This lesson will work with career standards all year, not just during the Fallapalooza!

3.) Veteran’s Day is also in November.  This year this holiday has snuck up on us, and we’re letting the music teacher do a school-wide Veteran’s Day celebration.  I guess this speaks to the importance of collaboration at your school.  Know when to tap out and ask for help!  What are you doing this year for Veteran’s Day?  Give us your best Veteran’s Day resources or ideas.

What else do you pack in to a short but full month?  Let us know in the comments!