The Best of Christmas

Here are some of the things I did with my students in December to celebrate Christmas.
Tracks Life Skills (Milestone 7 /Entry 1) Students aged 16-25

Karaoke with a microphone (not plugged in).Students bought in a CD and practised singing their favorite track ready for the Christmas Party. Most students bought in the CD Mama Mia! One student who rarely speaks sung to Boyzone at the top of her voice!
The Luck Dip
We ran a Lucky Dip at the Christmas Fayre. The Christmas Fayre had been organized by another group for their Edexcel Enterprise unit. We shopped for a few "prize items" and also used a bag full of ornaments bought at a car boot sale in the summer. We decorated tissue paper to wrap some presents and used Tesco's cheapest wrapping paper for the rest.

Milestone 4-8 Part time Adult Courses
We couldn't have a joint party like the other programmes so we decided on a daily event for the last week:
Christmas Carols at 11.00
Mince pies were bought, punch was made and fairy cakes were defrosted. Carols had been practised, shakers distributed and we all knew some of the Makaton signs to We Wish you a Merry Christmas.

Secret Santa
Each student in my Daily Living Skills group had £2.00 to buy a present for another student in the class. We discussed the type of present that individuals might like and with a few ideas we headed for the Pound Shop. Gifts such as calendars, ornaments, gloves and mugs were chosen and then secretly wrapped at college in different corners of the classroom. The final touch was a home made label with a short message. Presents were then exchanged with an appropriate greeting and taken home for Christmas Day.


And One Mistake
The fudge - I knew I shouldn't have gone ahead with it from the moment I put it in my Christmas plan but having made a commitment to the students I soldiered on. It caused me so much stress before hand, and used up a lot of my time. On the day the fudge didn't set and fudge making (which involves boiling sugar) needed constant supervision! I had practised making the fudge at the weekend following an "Easy" fudge recipe. Things were going well, it cooked really easily and only involved Chocolate and Carnation. The only trouble was it didn't taste like fudge and was a bit gooey... So I had to get up early Monday morning to try again this time with a proper fudge recipe. It worked and that was the only saving grace because in the end everyone had a beautiful box of fudge to take home.