In the week leading up to Thanksgiving Break, we had a couple of special activities at school.
On Thursday the entire elementary enjoyed a Thanksgiving Feast. We had a slightly extended lunch in order to enjoy the catered turkey, corn, rice dressing, and bread. In addition there were brownies for dessert. This event is only possible with the help of numerous parents who set up and decorate tables, serve food, supervise children, provide brownies for dessert, and generally ensure that everything runs smoothly. It was a pleasure to be able to sit down with some of the other teachers and enjoy our own meal while parents attended to the children. Due to the large number of elementary students, the feast was divided into multiple locations for the different grades. Our location was for the first through third graders. The food was enjoyable. The feast also provided opportunity to emphasize giving thanks to God.
Friday was Grandparent's Day. Our school does Grandparent's Day in a unique way - I least I had never heard of it before teaching there. Each class, in first through fourth grade, prepares a short program for the grandparents. Basically this means that in 30 minutes we try to do a little bit of every subject as a demonstration for the grandparents. I get to pick and choose the fun activities, and I work to make sure that each student has the opportunity to do some independent activity and write on the SmartBoard. After the short program the students give gifts to their grandparents. The students had a wonderful time. Our program was schedule for 8:00 and went until about 8:30. After the program was over, the grandparents were welcome to take their grandchildren with them. Some grandparents took them right away while other got some refreshments before taking the children. Each grade level had their program at a different time so that the grandparents could attend multiple programs for different grandchildren.
The few children who remained afterwards helped clean up the extra chairs in the classroom and then did other jobs for me. A few of the children stayed for a couple hours after we were finished, but that was a small number. After our program was over, I was able to get lots of small jobs done in the classroom and get ready to leave for break. An added bonus was that we only had a half day on Friday because our football team had an away playoff game and students were encouraged to attend.
These two special days involved extra work, but definitely blessed those who were involved. It was a great way to end the week before Thanksgiving Break.
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