Figgy Pudding Recipe

Today we made Figgy Pudding as part of our classroom unit on A Christmas Carol.  In spite of our misgivings it was delicious.  We altered a recipe found here for a simple figgy pudding.  Here is our version:

Ingredients:
1 and 1/4 cup Fig Pastry Filling
1 Box Deluxe Hearty Carrot Cake Mix (best if it has a separate bag of dehydrated carrot and raisins) and ingredients for Cake Mix (1/4 cup oil, 3 eggs - leave out the water)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
Zest of an orange is optional

Directions:
Put everything in a big bowl.
Using beaters (with switches galore) beat until well mixed.
Pour into greased baking pans, follow baking directions on Cake Mix box.
Optional:  Half way through baking cover with foil so the "pudding" is more steamed than baked.  

Yum!

Animated Christmas

Animated Christmas is a good resource with many things to explore. In particular your students may want to look at the interactive animated storybook, Fir Tree.

Might be a nice addition to a multicultural winter celebration unit.

"A Christmas Carol" Theme Unit

This blog entry is a work in progress, feel free to comment to contribute!

For the month of December (as there is not a full Unique Curriculum Unit and I am missing creating my own units) my class will be doing a unit on "A Christmas Carol".  We will be working from Pete's Sensory Story version and most of our activities will stem from that simple retelling.  Here are some of the resources we will use.

Pete's Sensory Stories - A Christmas Carol
This sensory story version is a slide show with sound effects and simple animations which is activated by switch.  Meanwhile the teacher reads from the script which comes with the slideshow while the teacher and aides expose the students to related sensory experiences, like touching a chain or smelling cinnamon.  I will also have large TOBI (true object based icons) of the characters which have textures added to them for the students.


Multi-Media
Audio Retellings
Our classroom iPod will also be loaded with a couple of audio versions of the story.

• Storynory "A Christmas Carol" free  
• Wired for Books "A Christmas Carol" free

Videos

• About.com's listing of A Christmas Carol videos
  

Academics

Math

• patterns of either real cranberries and popcorn in garland (note: this is a CHOKE HAZARD do not use if students may place items in mouth) or symbols/photos of popcorn and cranberries
• add and subtract sets to 5, 10 or 20 using chocolate gold coins (or symbols of them)
  

History

• learn about Charles Dickens in this animation
• learn about the 1800s (Victorian times)
  
• learn about Christmas in England

Life Skills

• using Victorian Paper Dolls practice dressing for the weather and compare and contrast clothes now vs. then
  

Arts and Crafts

• cranberry and popcorn garland (note: this is a CHOKE HAZARD do not use if students may place items in mouth) or make other dried fruit garland (in the Victorian era all sorts of dried fruit were used)
  
• make Christmas Crackers (video directions)
  

Sensory

• bin of cranberries and popcorn (note: this is a CHOKE HAZARD do not use if students may place items in mouth)
  

Vocational

• shop for and package hygiene items into kits to give to a homeless shelter (Dickens was the benefactor of a shelter for women)
  

Cooking

• Christmas Pudding
• Fig or Plum Pudding
• Roasted Chestnuts
• Marizpan
  

Community Based Instruction

• See a local production of A Christmas Carol
• See the movie version of A Christmas Carol
• Bring donations to a charity in the community

CC Bingo     

Read Aloud Christmas Stories for Switch Users

Northpole.Com has some (non-religious) Christmas stories that can be read aloud, on most of them the "next page" button stays in the same spot, so you can put your mouse pointer over it and have switch users turn the pages.

Note: for some bizarre reason the sound on these is not working in Firefox on my computer, but does work in Internet Explorer, so if you aren't getting sound try a different browser. Wait... I reinstalled Adobe Flash Player and now sound is working! So quick tip if for some reason you suddenly loose sound in Firefox, reinstall the Flash Plugin.

Letter to Santa

Dear Santa Claus,

I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving. Do you celebrate the American Thanksgiving in the North Pole? I have been good, mostly. I am writing to ask for the gifts I would like for my classroom this Christmas. My students have been very, very good, mostly. We have been very lucky and have had quite a few grants filled, and our agency found a little bit of money to let us send out orders, so we don't need much. We do have some wishes:

1. Ink. Santa Claus, we are always out of ink. I am not even exaggerating, we are seriously always out of ink. We would like some ink for our printers in our stockings.
2. Individual student equipment. Santa, I know you will be visiting my students and I know that you can see what they need, but that youngster who needs the wheelchair - sooner would be better than later. The same is true for the kiddo who needs new hearing aids, and new glasses and the learner who needs wheelchair adjustments. If you wouldn't mind those things would be awesome. There is also that child who could really use an Easy Stand (a chair/desk that turns into a stander/desk) and a high tech AAC device. Oh and if you are really in the mood for some magic, what about a solution to that one student's AAC access issues? What a dream come true those would be.
   
3. Interactive whiteboard. Oh, Santa, we could do so much with an IWB! We had a projector this year and it is almost the best thing ever, but an IWB would top even that.
4. The iTalk2 is now out with levels and our old one is pretty beat up, we could use a new one. A couple of packs of talking symbols notepads to go with it would be fabulous too.
5. A subscription to the Brain Pop Jr. website. Now that we have a working LCD projector Brain Pop Jr. would be a great way to add to its value.
   
6. More hours in the day. I know, Santa, you can't do this one, but if you could it would be marvelous! We would never have to wait for things to be laminated or cut out or downloaded and moved to different computers, because with more hours in the day it would all be done!

Thanks so much,

Kate the Teacher
P.S. On a personal note, my Blackberry is broken AGAIN and my car needs a tune up. I never object to gift cards for gas or coffee either.

Holiday Activities

Here are some links to interactive holiday activities for your classroom. Most are in Flash and most would be great on an interactive white board or with a touch screen. (Note you can use the Firefox extension ScrapBook to view off line or download to the newest Real Player - will lose interactivity this way.)

• Decorate gingerbread cookies here or here
• Make a Flake
  
• Santa's Deer (slightly distasteful in that middle school boy kind of way)
• I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas
• Christmas Monkeys
• Drag and Drop Decorate for Christmas
• Decorate the Tree
  
• Decorate Your Christmas Tree
• Diving Penguin Game (can be played with one switch set on spacebar)

Flash Videos (not interactive - download with the new Real Player and insert into PPT, Clicker5 or Classroom Suite activities)

• Pretty Paper
• I believe in Santa Claus
• Snow Duet
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas
• White Christmas
• Joy to the World (religious images)
• Dog Bark Jingle Bells

Links to about a dozen Flash items.