Wishing you and your people a great winter break and a fantastic new year.

By the way, if your Middle School and High School students are tired of making new year’s resolutions in January, check out this free “anti-motivational” motivational letter.

The brainstorming handouts work with upper elementary students, but the motivational anti-motivational letter is probably better for Grades 7 and up. After all, it does tell them they’re going to be average.

Learn more.

If you’re like most people, you think you’re either creative… or you’re not. And that’s just the way it is.

• I’m not good at art; I’m no good at drawing
• I love being creative; I love expressing myself!

Apparently, creativity is something we can become better at.

So, how do we nurture creativity in our students, if we ourselves aren’t sure how to teach it? Or, better yet, how to evaluate it?

Great question. Here are 14 creativity lessons for elementary, middle school, and high school students to get ready for 2023.

(By the way, when you figure out something, you’re create-ing a solution to a problem. That’s creativity. Connecting ideas together in ways you haven’t thought of before…)

We’re almost at the end of the calendar year. Things are winding up (at the same time that they’re winding down.)

Need something meaningful to fill a period or two? Check out these 17 classroom debates.

The slideshow lesson explains how to communicate clearly and fairly. The debate questions start off easy but build up to issues of fairness and equity.

Now is the season of giving. But, it’s also a great time to reflect on how we participate in our classroom and our communities:

Citizenship Activities for Middle School and High School

Are your students bouncing off the walls? (How’s your sanity doing? You’re almost at the end!)

Keeping your students focused at this time of year can be tough. Some students go on holiday early. Other students have mentally checked out.

So, now is the perfect time to check out this Character Building Unit – get ready for 2023!

• Students do a survey to see if they have a Growth Mindset or a Fixed Mindset
• Then, they explicitly learn strategies to keep going when the going gets tough.
• Finally, they get to actually try to shift into a Growth Mindset… as they get frustrated doing Sudoku puzzles.

Why is now the perfect time to use this Social-Emotional Learning Skills resource?

• Because it’s low prep. The work is already done for you. You just need to tweak it for your specific classroom needs and teaching style.
• If half of your class is absent, it’s not the end of the world. (It’s not like you’re starting new curriculum that you will have to re-teach in January.)
• The Character Education Lesson Plans (PDF) are a lifelong tool. So you can use them again in the New Year (January 2023), or at the start of next term, next school year, or next whatever.

Good luck counting down the days to Winter Break! Cheers, Mike

then you will absolutely love the kind of teaching resources I make.

Here are the two questions.

(I think the rest of TPT calls this the Cyber Sale. Same same, but different.)

• The point of school is NOT to learn. Will your students agree or disagree? CLICK HERE to check out the slideshow lesson, handout, and video.

• Everything in the Educircles TPT store is 20% off.

• Use promo code CYBER22 at the checkout to save an extra 5%.

• The two-day sale starts this Monday, November 28th at 12:01am ET and runs through Tuesday, November 29th at 11:59pm ET.

⭐ EVERYTHING BUNDLE – LOWEST PRICE ALERT:

• If you agree with what I say in this video at 2:09

• and you agree with my philosophy about EFFORT in this video at 15:52

• then you will LOVE the Educircles Everything Bundle.