Homemade Christmas Gifts

Pinterest inspired me to give homemade gifts for school Christmas presents. I actually came up with ideas for my boys teachers without stealing them from someone else, and they didn't include they typical coffee mugs that teachers always end up with!

Homemade cake balls:

1 tub for each teacher and a jar-full for daycare.

At school, our Student Council gave baggies of Jolly Ranchers to all of the staff:

~Mrs. Scott

Geometry Ornaments

The Christmas tree in my classroom was needing some decorating, so I took the opportunity to review geometry with my students.

This would make a great classroom lesson for lower grade levels (4-7th). I bought some gumdrops from Walmart (mini marshmallows work too, but aren't as colorful), and used left over spaghetti noodles and toothpicks.

Students build 3-dimensional shapes (could work with 2-d shapes too) using the supplies given. We built cubes, triangular prisms & pyramids, rectangular prisms & pyramids, and then students calculated the number of faces, edges, and vertices, and showed me which side they would use to calculate "B," the area of the base.

~Mrs. Scott

Adopt-a-Family

This is why I love being a Student Council Sponsor:

Tonight I am organizing 76 gifts from our Fall service project: adopt-a-family. This year we have adopted a family with a single mom and four children, ages 5, 8, 9, and 11 years old.

Our members stepped up and really took care of this family, ensuring they have a wonderful Christmas. One of our members even purchased gifts (including shoes for mom) with her own money because she said a few years ago, she was "one of those families." What a perfect way to pay it forward!

Anyone who complains about "kids these days" needs to step into a junior high and see that there are plenty of children (teenagers too!) with huge hearts!