Trying to find classroom activities that capitalize on the interest of the holidays, provide meaningful classroom experiences, and avoid controversy can be challenging. This time of year can also be very stressful for teachers as they juggle report cards, conferences, curriculum demands, parent communication, meetings, and their own family obligations. Try this low-prep Thanksgiving activity for a fun, meaningful, and relatively stress-free project
This project is designed for teachers who intend to be in their same school district next year. It involves keeping the digital time capsule and emailing it to your students the same time next year!
Brainstorm this project with your students. They will likely have some creative ideas they would like to see included. Add any elements you feel would be beneficial. Establish a timeline for research and developing their digital time capsule. Will you have audio and movies? A powerpoint or google slide presentation? What will the end product look like? Will each student submit something individually? Will small groups work together to complete some of the elements?
Ideas to consider:
What news stories are most prevalent now?
What kind of season are local or pro sports teams having?
Take a picture of the group.
What are the top songs/groups/television shows/movies/books/video games?
Create a survey with student interests/preferences.
Develop a infographic with current prices, covid cases, favorite places to eat, etc.
Predictions for next year.
A positive comment about each student.
Things they are grateful for.
Favorite classroom memories.
The teacher or a designated appointee collects and archives the digital time capsule. Next year the week of Thanksgiving they receive their time capsule from this year.
Looking for other ideas for Thanksgiving? Check out these resources on TPT or Boom™ Learning with a Thanksgiving theme.
Other Thanksgiving Ideas from Reading Specialty
