Three Stars and a Wish {12-8-14}

Good evening! I thought today would be a good day for another installment of "Three Stars and a Wish!"

If you would like to share your own "Three Stars and a Wish," you can download the template for free here. Please share the love, and don't forget to link back to my blog! 

1: After spending a lesson or two listening, performing, and describing "soft" and "loud" sounds, I introduced the term "dynamics" to my Kinders last week. I didn't spend very long on the term itself and wasn't really expecting them to retain it yet. It made my day when they remembered it and said it without being prompted!

I'm guessing it was because of the super engaging, always a hit, hoberman sphere:

Photo from  ThinkGeek.com

2: I have a fifth grade class that has been bitten by the "I'm too cool for Elementary school" bug. It's difficult to find activities that they will all latch on to. Usually I do this activity more with primary grades, but I figured we would spend five minutes playing the dreidel game after singing the song "S'vivon, Sov Sov Sov." They learned the lyrics in both Hebrew and English and were soooo interested in the dreidel itself! I'm extending the lesson to continue on the next time I see them. Must file this one in the "teaching win!" folder.

3: As I mentioned in my previous post (my "What's On Your Desk?" linky party, which is still open for links), I have been prepping for an after school PD session on Effective Effort that I am co-presenting with a classroom teacher. It just so happened that at a completely unrelated meeting I attended for beginning teachers today, a large chunk of time was spent discussing Effective Effort. It was very reaffirming and I feel great about the upcoming session.

A Wish: For one of my schools' winter concerts tomorrow, my colleague put together a faculty choir to sing a super silly, incredibly fun version of "I'm Gettin' Nothin' for Christmas" and I volunteered to sing a solo! All of the verses of the song were modified to include names of teachers in our school (fun, right?) so I struggled a bit to memorize my part. I'm pretty sure I've got it down, though... ::fingers crossed:::