12 Days of Christmas Day 2: Holiday Gift Guide for Teachers

Are you even a teacher if you are not buried under so much end of the year grading, crafting, projects, and programs? This time of the year is definitely crazy and busy. That's why I am putting together a holiday gift guide to help make every teacher's holidays a little easier, brighter, and definitely more fun. 

1. First up, keep student's learning with these print and go articles about Christmas trees and holiday decor from my History Behind the Holidays series. The seven articles can be stapled together and used as a magazine in reading groups for an entire week and beyond. Each article comes with a comprehension worksheet. There are several extension activities included and even a Christmas tree STEM. Everything is super easy to prep and will definitely give teachers an easy and engaging set of lessons to get you through till the holiday break.

You can check this resource out here.

2. Keeping your students going this year gets a little bit challenging....okay, a lot challenging! With thoughts of Christmas dancing in their heads, they have definitely started checking out. If you are trying to get some good work out of them in the last few days before break. Start noticing the good things you see them doing. Mention it, reward it. Send some positive notes their way. They will love to show these off and it will encourage good and focused behavior to the very end of the year. Here are some little Christmas-themed positive notes to send home with them. They will be proud to take them home to their favorite grown-up and the adult in their life will love to hear a positive comment about their child as well. These little notes come in 12 different designs that can be printed in color or blackline. If you use the blackline version, you can add a burst of color by printing on colored paper (red or green for Christmas would be nice), but you could also print on white paper as well. These super cute cards can be found right here. 

3. Extra special and fun activities make the Christmas season even more fun in the classroom. One of my favorites is this simple art challenge. Who doesn't like art? And making it into a game makes it even more fun! Try out this art teambuilding activity. If you have ever watched the food competition show called Chopped, you get the idea. Each group of students gets a bag of art supplies that are identical. They will work together with their group to create an art project that meets a certain challenge or theme using the items in their bag. The groups will have a certain amount of time to complete each challenge. Once the time is up, each group will present their project and be judged on it. There are three rounds with three different challenges before a winning team is named. 

All the supplies inside the bags are easy household/school classroom items. This is low-prep, but high on fun! Find this resource over here. 

4. Channel the chattiness of the class this time of year to do some mid-year teambuilding. Allow students to share their thoughts and ideas about the Christmas season with a simple Dice Conversation activity. In this Christmas Dice Convo teambuilding resource, students will practice listening and speaking skills within groups while building their team skills. It's a fun and easy way to fill in a few minutes here or there or start/end the day. Here's where you can find this activity. 

5. Unfortunately, it is also time to think about after the holiday. How do you celebrate the new year in your classroom? I love to use my History Behind the Holidays resource to ring in the new year by taking a look at New Year traditions. This resource includes seven articles that help students learn about favorite traditions here and around the world. The articles would be great to get your reading or history class started in the new year during the first week or more. Comprehension questions are included for every single article. A goal-setting craftivity is also included for the new year. Students will even create an envelope time capsule that you can put away till next year. Last year I did this and my students are already asking about the time capsule. They are anxious to see it again. Also included is a Tournament of Roses parade activity as well as a New Year themed STEM project. This will definitely make coming back to school after two weeks of glorious vacationing easier. You can check it out here. All activities in this pack has been completely updated to show the date for the new year. 

These are my five top recommendations for busy teachers this holiday season. Be sure to check them out!

April Fool's Day

The best thing about April Fool's Day with 3rd-5th graders is that they are really into it. They love pranking each other and maybe will even jump in and try to prank you as well. I love these silly holidays that just bring a smile to the faces of my students. But what I love just as much is learning about the History behind the holiday. This year, I created a little reading comprehension and writing activity pack that helps students find out all about this fun day. It also looks at how others around the world celebrate and some fun and famous pranks!

I don't know about you, but I am always trying to figure out how to make things fun and keep the kids guessing. My favorite April Fool's Day activity was the year that I made brown e's. Yes you read that right. All day, I told my class that I had make them brown e's and of course it sounded just like their favorite dessert, brownies. When I whipped out the pan and in dramatic fashion removed the foil I went up and down the rows of seats passing them each a brown e. Their faces! Oh it was just too good. 

But later, I did give them an actual treat, although the sound of it is utterly disgusting. We had kitty litter cake. If you are wondering what this is, let me give you a quick rundown. First you crumble a chocolate and vanilla cake together and mix in some icing. You pour it into a clean, unused kitty litter pan, I got mine at the Dollar Tree and even picked up a kitty litter scoop to serve it with. Then to put it over the top, you take some Tootsie Rolls and slightly warm them in the microwave until they are bendable. After that, form them into....I think you see where this is going....kitty poop and drop some here and there, even burying some for an old litter box look. Dangle one over the side if you are that brave. Trust me, the kids loved it, especially the boys!

In case you are interested in sharing the history behind this holiday, you can click on the picture below. Happy April Fool's, everyone!