Teaching the meaning of Christmas

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Archive : 2004 : January : 1

Teaching the meaning of Christmas
By Kathy

I teach in a low income school district with many single parent families. Our 5th grade teaching team realized that several of our students would not be able to purchase a gift for the gift exchange. So this year we had a
Christmas card exchange, the students drew random names & made a special holiday card for their "Secret Friend". Several made handmade cards, some computer cards & some purchased cards. But each card included a "warm fuzzy" message from the heart for their friend. Some of the girls complained to me privately because they were embarrassed to write to a boy but they were able to come up with

a nice message & learned to be better friends. They were also invited to bring in a jar of Peanut Butter for the local food bank or a good clean toy for the Toys for Tots drive. Of course, some of our poorest students were the ones who contributed to these programs.
As far as my gifts to the students, I made a small goodie bag with a candy cane, Free Homework Pass & Free Test Question coupon. The majority of my students thanked me or expressed excitement with the Homework pass.