Time to Celebrate: Cranberries, Stuffing, and Freebies! Plus Win Two Books

I’m ready to celebrate! I’m not talking about celebrating Thanksgiving Day, although I for one am a huge fan of the food (mmmm, cranberries and stuffing!) and festivities (parades and football, anyone?) plus get-togethers with friends and family. I’m ready to celebrate the fantastic freebies I have for you!

To get you started, submit a comment to the blog by 11:59 pm EST Sunday, December 7, 2014, to tell me which of the items below are your favorites. One lucky teacher will win both The Little Moon Raven and The Snow Queen! In The Little Moon Raven, written by the Marcus Pfister of The Rainbow Fish fame, the little raven is the last to hatch and the last to learn how to fly, but he finds the strength to overcome bullies as he tries to fly to the moon. In the classic The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, Gerda sets out to save her friend Kay from the wicked Snow Queen, leading to a fantastical journey through talking birds, magical flowers, and fierce snowflakes. (Update: Congratulations to Darlene, who is the winner of our prize.)

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Did you know that December 4 is a day worthy of celebration? It’s National Wildlife Day! Be ready to incorporate timely animal-related holidays and special events in your lesson plans with free grades K–5 Common Core–aligned activities from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. For example, kids will ooh and aah over the baby squirrel image while learning more about backyard wildlife and getting practice representing and interpreting data. You’ll get this and more when you become an Animal Ambassador. (Yes, it’s free to become an animal ambassador.) Plus sign up now to be entered to win a $500 Amazon gift card! It’s all at TheMailbox.com/ifaw.

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Here’s another December celebration you may not be aware of: December 8–15 is Computer Science Education Week. By 2020, it’s estimated that one million computer science jobs will go unfilled. Why? There won’t be enough students graduating with the right technical skills! To take the mystery out of computer science, Skype and Code.org have teamed up to provide free tech guest speakers for classrooms. Click here to watch a brief video that introduces you to the program. To sign up, click here! Then join the Hour of Code during Computer Science Education Week with free hour-long tutorials—both online and unplugged—for grades K–12 to introduce kids to coding. The goal is for 100 million students worldwide to participate. Click here to learn more!

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Celebrate giving back while you Introduce important themes, such as social justice, with free lesson plans for students of all ages from Smile Train. Each plan teaches about a specific country where Smile Train has programs. Smile Train is a nonprofit organization that provides free cleft surgery for children in 87 countries. Click here to get your free lesson plans and to find out how your class can be be part of Students for Smile Train!

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“Age-appropriate technology at its best”—that’s how one preschool teacher describes her experience with ABCmouse.com for Schools. Why should you celebrate? This step-by-step learning path for preschool and kindergarten is absolutely free for teachers! The curriculum is presented in a program of more than 450 lessons—that’s 5,000 individual activities—in six levels. Plus first-grade teachers, get ready to join the celebration—a curriculum will be added for you soon! Click here to learn more.
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Textiles should never go in the trash—even items that are worn, torn, and stained. Let your students become Recycling Rangers and teach them about recycling textiles! SMART: Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles has free grades K–2 and 3–5 lesson plans and worksheets that are designed to meet the Common Core. Click here now to check them out.  The reason to celebrate? You can win with SMART! Watch for an exciting new contest coming soon!

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Finally, celebrate a better understanding of middle schoolers. Yes, really! Whether you teach middle schoolers or are the parent of one, kids at this age can be a mystery. Take some tips from Rachel Vail, author of Unfriended, a book about the internal struggles of middle schoolers played out very publicly on social media. She’s sharing the top 15 things middle school-age kids wish you knew. Click here to see her list!
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Don’t forget; tell me which of these celebrations are your favorites for a chance to win The Little Moon Raven and The Snow Queen!