1. A Day of Baking

For many families, the holiday season means baking cookies of all kinds, including sugar cookies and gingerbread men. Some families even go all out and bake a complete gingerbread house to decorate. December 12 is National Gingerbread House Day. There are many different ways to make these houses, which are decorated with frosting and candies. You can make one from scratch or get a kit. In teams or as a class, search the newspaper’s food columns for directions on how to make a Gingerbread House. Or find directions online. Draw a comic strip for the newspaper showing you and your family making the house. Then make the house with your family or as a class, following the directions from the article.

Common Core/National Standards: Using drawings or visual displays when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or points; asking and answering questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

2. Poetry That Can Mooooove You

When he was a college student, artist Nathan Banks came up with an interesting idea for an art project. He combined two things that don't normally go together — poetry and cows. Banks painted huge words on the sides of a herd of cows in a field. As they moved around, grazing and visiting with one another, they created different phrases, which could be called poetry. Look in today's newspaper for three words that you think are interesting. Write them in large letters on a sheet of paper. Cut your words out and put them in a pile with your classmates' cut-out words. Taking turns, close your eyes and select three words from the pile. Write them down in order. Then write a poem with those three words as the first line. Have fun!

Common Core/National Standards: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience; writing fluently for multiple purposes to produce compositions, such as stories, reports, letters, plays, poetry and explanations of processes.

3. The Picture of Kindness

A photo taken by an Arizona woman has touched the hearts of people all over the country — and the world. It showed a New York City police officer bending down and giving a homeless man a new pair of socks and a pair of warm winter boots. Not only did Officer Lawrence DePrimo buy the socks and boots with his own money, but he knelt down and put the socks and boots on the man, who had no shoes. DePrimo said he wasn’t aware anyone was taking his picture or that it would go viral when posted on the Internet. Jennifer Foster of Florence, Arizona, took the picture and also works in law enforcement. She wrote to the New York Police Department and said “I have been in law enforcement for 17 years. I was never so impressed in my life.” In teams or as a class, search the newspaper and the Internet for a picture that shows human kindness. Write a paragraph explaining why the picture touches your heart.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

4. Hoop Math

Basketball season is in full swing, and NBA players are all working for wins and a chance to compete in the playoffs. Most NBA scores run in the 80s, 90s and low 100s, but 19 years ago history was made. On December 13, 1983, the Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets played a triple-overtime game that had a final score of 186-184 for a total of 370 points. In all, six players from each team scored in double figures. Using basketball scores is a great way to practice your adding and subtracting skills – especially carrying and regrouping or borrowing. Using your newspaper, find the scores of basketball games from around the NBA. Add the scores together for different games and see how many total points were scored. Then subtract the smaller score from the larger score to find out the difference in each game. For added fun, use NBA scores to create a math problem of your own to exchange with a classmate.

Common Core/National Standard: Representing and solving problems involving addition and subtraction.

5. Hitting the Big Screen

What did you accomplish this year? Ten-year-old Isabelle Allen starred in a major motion picture. Just a year ago, the British girl was in a school play when a man from Britain’s National Youth Music Theatre saw her portray the role of a lame boy. He was so impressed, he persuaded the casting agents for the movie version of the musical “Les Miserables” to let her audition. Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine in the X-Men movies, plays her guardian in the new movie. In teams or alone, search the newspaper or the Internet for stories about child actors. Write a paragraph about a movie you would like to be in and why.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.