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.
All AboutHoliday
Academic Love Letters
We’re going to take the Academic Valentine idea from earlier, and extend it into a full blown love letter – just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Writing Mother’s Day Similes
Mother’s Day is coming up, and it’s the perfect chance to practice figurative language. Help your students create thoughtful cards, packed with rich similes and metaphors that relate directly to their mothers.
Create A Holiday
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.
An Academic Twist on Valentines
Want to have some February fun? Let’s merge the idea of “going together like milk and cookies” with curriculum to create Academic Valentine’s Day cards!
A Holiday Themed Shakespearean Sonnet
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.
Remix Poetry: Christmas To Thanksgiving
Let’s remix a famous Christmas poem, give it a Thanksgiving theme, and teach our students advanced poetry concepts at the same time
Halloween: Characters Dressed As Characters
What if characters from film or literature dress up like other characters based on some parallel such as: conflict, trait, accomplishment, etc.
Persuasive Writing: Holiday Vs Holiday
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?
Multiple Perspectives: Lunar Calendars
Looking at calendars throughout history is an interesting way to explore multiple perspectives. Nothing is as ingrained in our lives as seven day weeks, twelve months, and 365 days per year. Challenge your students’ perceptions by investigating various solar, lunar, and lunisolar calendars.
Go Deep With Christmas Trees
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.
Thanksgiving Haikus
This year, I changed one requirement. Students had to compose a haiku as the body of their card. This gave me a chance to introduce a type of poetry that I like to use throughout the year, while still maintaining the purpose of expressing unexpected thankfulness to someone.
Thanksgiving’s Thursday Origins
Teaching students about the first Thanksgiving feast is standard fare in the primary grades, yet there is a gold mine of fascinating information about the origin of Thanksgiving’s date. It’s a bizarre history that will intrigue your students and could lead down some interesting avenues!
Halloween Exploration Ideas
Halloween is coming up, and it’s a hard one to ignore in the classroom. Sure, you can always use the traditional cut and paste pumpkin activity, but let’s think about how we can capture students’ excitement and use it to deepen thinking and increase knowledge?