Looking for gift ideas for your classroom or home? Here are my go-to gift guides as well as places kids might be interested in giving some money.

As the holidays approach, few teachers can afford to buy each student a gift - but we all have the power to give students something meaningful that doesn't cost a thing. Here are three ideas…

Here's a list of interesting items to help intense students in a classroom setting. Fidgety tools, special sets, and even ear plugs!

Some of my favorite games, novels, creativity books, and tools for differentiation.

Take students beyond the decorations and ask them to identify what a holiday reveals about a culture's values. Then, push them further as they develop their own holidays.

Now we're going to create our own holiday-themed Shakespearean Sonnet. To add complexity (and help our students get started!), we'll write from the point of view of a specific holiday decoration, tradition, or character.

What if you want to buy a big gift that's cheap for its size? By calculating the volume of the object, we can find how much each cubic inch costs. Measured by price per volume, Thomas is 250 times more expensive than a big outdoor slide!

Let’s remix a famous Christmas poem, give it a Thanksgiving theme, and teach our students advanced poetry concepts at the same time

Let's write a persuasive essay about one holiday from the point of view of another holiday's "mascot." For example, what would the Easter Bunny think about Christmas, how would Santa feel about Valentine's Day, and what would a Turkey have to say about St. Patrick's Day?

Naturally, the origin of a topic is a great place to start, and the Christmas tree has quite a twisty, *knotted* history. Some trace the *roots* of the tree-decorating tradition back to ancient winter celebrations. However, the use of decorated trees as a Christmas-specific decoration is surprisingly new, appearing in the last 500 years or so.