Like many teachers across the country, my fellow grade-level team member and I declared the week before winter break to be “Gingerbread Week” in an effort to be festive without giving offense to anyone. Each day we read a different gingerbread story, beginning with the original folktale on Monday.
We made all sorts of scholarly applications out of our topic. We had gingerbread sorts, gingerbread CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) word blending, gingerbread math, gingerbread vocabulary syllable identification, and gingerbread alphabetical order. Just to make sure we were (that all-too-loved term by administrators) “rigorous” enough, we also made sure we used higher-order thinking activities, such as analysis and creativity, as we discussed cause and effect in our stories, made comparisons of similarities and differences between the versions, and wrote our own endings to the story.
At the end of the day, though, it just didn’t feel like enough this year. The students weren’t allowed their usual winter party because of COVID-19, and it just wasn’t the same. I had expressed that thought to my husband, and told him I wished I could at least give the kids some gingerbread as a treat to wrap up our themed week and send them off happily into their break.
Being the sweet, kind fellow that he is, he stopped off at the grocery store the next day to see what they had. Although he wasn’t able to find traditional gingerbread people, he did find some gingerbread cookies, all factory-made and prepackaged per COVID precautionary guidelines. I was thrilled! I checked the ingredients, double-checked my list of allergies, sent out a notice to the parents of what I was planning to do, and even sent an individual email to one parent just to clarify the extent of her child’s allergies. Everything was cleared and ready to go!
Before I handed out the treats I explained to my class that I thought it would be fun if we actually tried some gingerbread since we had been reading about it all week and asked if anyone had tasted gingerbread before. Only one hand went up. We washed our hands, sanitized our tables, and I distributed the packages of cookies. They opened them, lowered their masks, took their first bites, and their eyes opened wide. They loved it!
In fact, one boy, who is very difficult to please and who often proclaims himself “bored,” muttered to himself as he gobbled away, “So this is gingerbread, huh? Why haven’t I had this before? This is GOOD! I gotta get me some more of this stuff!”
Teachers, by this point in the year, are feeling the same way about rest and relaxation, and while we’ve experienced it before, it’s been a long, long time since we’ve actually had any, particularly this year. So for all the teachers out there (and anyone else who needs a break – like our diligent, even harder-working health care professionals), may you have some time over the holidays for peace and release and rest, because it’s GOOD, and we gotta get ourselves some more of it!
Merry Christmas, everyone!