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Showing posts with label secondary school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secondary school. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Custom Keychain Gift Idea for Students

 Hello! Tonight I'd also like to share a gift idea I did for my students last Christmas as both an end of the semester and Christmas gift in one (also because I literally did not have any time to celebrate those two occasions with separate gifts). I have no regrets about this and liked the result, but disclaimer: these take an insane amount of time. Like they took me at least fifteen minutes each to put together, decide on the designs, tie, and hot glue. I multiplied that by thirty-eight students which I should have done before starting this project since I have almost zero time management skills and no sense of time passing. The number I came up with is approximately a minimum of nine and a half hours. I am pretty certain it took hours over that. 

That said, it is very time consuming. That is just for the keychain part, too, not counting the packaging part. I think I made the labels on Canva but could not find the printable to add in below. I bought the ribbon in a bulk roll from Amazon and still have plenty to spare months later. The beads came from a variety of kits I bought off of Amazon and then stole from my brother because the kits I bought ran out, so for thirty-eight students I should have bought three or four kits instead of two. Each keychain featured the student's name, and two large beads I thought they would like (such as a smiley face, bow, star, and so on) or three or four smaller ones (I tried very hard to make them all equal). 

The pros are that these are both pretty and practical, and they are very personalized. These could really be given to any age and any group of people, too. 












Thank you for stopping by, I hope you find this idea helpful! 


Blessings,
Lauryn
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Monday, January 26, 2026

Halloween English Lessons & Classroom Halloween Party, 2025

 Hello, here is yet another class party I would like to share from last semester. Halloween fell on a school day, so I celebrated with a class Halloween party that incorporated their class projects from the week. 

One project, which I saw on TPT, is making synonym/antonym gravestones and ghosts. I found some free gravestones to print. They had to write their choice word with five synonyms on the front, followed by five antonyms on the back. They could research synonyms and antonyms on Google. That was completed after an introduction to synonyms and antonyms on the Monday prior, so I drew grass and made a graveyard/ghost display.

The other assignment that ended up taking all week or longer was a symbolism mask assignment. Students were to draw ten images on one side of their mask designs that each symbolized something about them (what they believe, love, the hobbies they do, their personality, anything). On the other side, they were to write out ten "I am..." statements to describe themselves, applying repetition and more specifically, anaphora. On Halloween day they all got to 'dress up' and we did a class photo in each class featuring everyone in their masks. 

I planned several Halloween-inspired English games as well. One was to design a pumpkin on paper that clearly included symbolism and was themed around a particular book, character, or movie. Another used charts and involved rolling die to prompt a scary creative story. My favorite was where they worked in pairs with whiteboards. One partner had to describe a monster with as many adjectives as possible while the other partner had to draw it. They had five minutes and had to face away from each other until the drawing was done, then everyone revealed their masterpieces and partners swapped roles. Examples of some of these activities are shown below.

As far as the decorations go, I got the spiderwebs, spider dish, and balloons from Dollar Tree. I cut some paper plates into hexagons to look more web-like, too. The treats came from Aldi and a dollar store. 


























Thank you for visiting, I hope you find this helpful! 

-Lauryn 







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Sunday, January 25, 2026

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Classroom Party

Happy Sunday! I hope everyone is safe and warm! Today I have lots of posts to share (if I do not lose internet), starting with this classroom Charlie Brown Thanksgiving party, themed around the movie "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving". We did not watch the movie in class, and it was honestly in no way connected to what we were studying. While Schulz's "Peanuts" comics and the classic Charlie Brown movies hold a dear place in my heart, I chose this theme because several students doodled pictures of Snoopy throughout the semester and seemed to like it. Plus, I have always wanted to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving feast with popcorn, pretzels, and toast with toppings (which I bought from Aldi), and jelly beans (which I forgot to buy for my class). I bought honey, peanut butter, Nutella (which was the most popular), and cinnamon sugar as topping options. I took my family's toaster for the day. The balloons were from Dollar Tree, and I doodled a picture on the board with Expo markers the night before. I planned out group station-type activities to do before each feast, so I put the desks in a circle. To make a mini tablecloth for each desk, I cut some regular-sized tablecloths from Walmart into about eight rectangles each.







I hope you enjoyed!

Blessings, 
Lauryn 


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