So before teaching Grade 6, I taught small groups of 18-20 students. It was wonderful. Buying Christmas gifts for my little students seemed easy and never too expensive. Then, I got moved up to grade 6. I now had 60 students per day, and thinking of spending even a small amount per student actually came up to a small fortune. That's when I had a great idea.
Christmas gift with a Curriculum link
I was teaching Social Studies at the time, more specifically Canada's Interactions with the Global Community and we were talking about nonprofit organizations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature. We read a shared reading text on the WWF - Canada and then watched some videos as well. This really seemed to affect the kids. This is when my Christmas gift idea for students came to mind. I kept preaching that we need to do more to help various global issues, so why not actually put that in place?
I had a discussion with my students. I told them that I could either go to Dollorama and buy them each a $1 Christmas gift, or that we could do something as a class to help out our global community, and also get something in return. I told them that we could adopt an endangered species. We obviously wouldn't be getting that animal in our class, but we would be getting a plush and certificate in return, that we could keep in our class, to represent that good deed we've done.
I let them vote (our class is a democracy), and I was astounded at the results. I'd say 90% wanted to forgo their Christmas gift to help out an endangered species.
We went on the WWF Website and looked over the animal choices. We read up on the different animals and the "why adopt this animal section". We then selected our top 3 animals and had a class vote (again a democracy) for the animal of their choice. We went ahead and placed our order.
helping the global community
I have to say, the students were so excited about their Christmas Gift. Once it arrive, we opened the package together and it was really symbolic for us to have been able to adopt an endangered species. Especially since we were talking about Canada's Interactions with the Global Community. What better way than to actually take part in these interactions?
The students selected a spot in the class where our animal and certificate would stay for the rest of the year, and this became a sort of mascot for us. As we got further into our year and started exploring our Biodiversity unit, it brought back our original thoughts on wanting to adopt an endangered species. I highly recommend doing this activity, if you chose to do any sort of Christmas Gift for your students (but remember, you are not obligated to get students a gift either).
P.S. My students selected the Red Panda and the Orangatang as their endangered species. Here they are (I've kept them since 2019).
If you decide to do this with your students, please share which animal they chose, I'd love to see which endangered species they chose to help. Send them to me through Instagram or Facebook, or email me: missfrenchimmersion@gmail.com
Looking for Christmas Concert Ideas? Christmas Gifts for Students to make for parents? Check out my December Lesson Plans!
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