Hi! for many people around the world this is the season of giving, so I have some activities based on that theme for you, and an opportunity for you to do some giving of your own!

It can be hard buying something for every student, with so many of them and teachers’ typical salaries even giving each one a Christmas card requires a budget so I’ve been looking at free “gifts”.

Wordclouds: Write each student’s name on the top of a piece of paper and send it round the room asking students to add a positive adjective. Then use a word cloud generator to make a pretty, coloured word cloud of all these words (and add a few if necessary). Laminate if you’re feeling flush.

Secret Santa: If you’re uncomfortable asking students to buy each other presents they can make decorated cards, or mini-posters using motivating quotes to give each other.

Get out of homework free cards: You can offer your students useful “gifts” that don’t cost a penny, giving each one a “joker” to be used for homework for example, or giving them the right to ask for a word of vocabulary during a test for example.

Your chance to give!

As you may know I’m training to run the London marathon next April. My aim is to raise 3,000€ for Macmillan, a charity that helps people with cancer and their families. It was thanks to Macmillan nurses that we were able to keep my mum at home at the end of her life, and I promised her I would try and raise as much as I could for them.

Many of us give to charities at this time of year, and if you’re planning on doing so then please consider giving to this cause through my site here.

Finally, and most importantly – remember teaching is hard, so the most important thing to give is yourself a break for time to time!