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Five Great Goodbye Gifts for Your Class

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crayons in a yellow bucket with colored pencils, candy, and balls

Endings are almost always bittersweet. As you wave goodbye to each precious life that sat in your classroom this year, you may feel a mix of elation and sadness. Before they go, give each child something that shows your care and appreciation. It doesn’t need to be dramatic, expensive, or even super-creative. A tiny, simple gift can have a huge impact on a little one’s heart.

1. Buckets of Fun

For younger students, stuff a small plastic bucket with some treats and treasures that they can enjoy over the summer. Items such as pencils and erasers, crayons, and sidewalk chalk invite students to keep writing, drawing, and expressing themselves during the summer months. Lollipops, sticks of gum, fruit snacks, or nut-free chocolates appeal to every child’s sweet tooth. To encourage math skills, drop in a few pennies as well. Top the bucket handle with a ribbon. Then, write a note to the student expressing your appreciation and telling him or her to check with a parent before using the items in the bucket.

2. Game Time

Give your elementary students a reason to step away from video games, tablets, and computers this summer. Pick up inexpensive card games or board games for them, or purchase sets of small tennis-style rackets and balls. Inject a little extra fun and encourage outdoor play by offering each student a water gun as an end-of-year gift. Many of these items are inexpensive and available at your local dollar store.

3. A Thankful Heart

To thank the parents who have volunteered in your classroom or lent their brainpower to help with homework, have each student draw a picture or write a few sentences about the many ways that parents help children. Scan those pictures and messages, copy them, and assemble them into simple memory books that the children can take home to Mom and Dad.

4. Write Back at You!

If you want to stay in touch with your students, give each one a beautiful postcard, already stamped and addressed to you. Tell your students that if they write on that postcard and send it to you over the summer, you’ll send them a letter. The idea of getting their own mail should spur at least a few of them to exercise their postcard-writing skills.

5. The Reading Cycle

Summer reading shouldn’t be a chore─it should be an adventure. Pick up some pre-loved fiction books from your favorite used book shop and hand them out to your students. Keep the books high on fun and short on the page count. At the end of each book, tape a brand-new bookmark, along with a note that says, “For your next reading adventure.”

Use your imagination as you think about end-of-year gifts for your students. Whether it’s slapping a “You’re a Smart Cookie” label on a pack of mini OREO® Cookies or handing out pocket-size bottles of scented hand sanitizer, your students will love the gesture. Children can never have too many people to care about them. Let your students know that you will stand behind them, cheering them on through the summer and beyond.

OREO is a registered trademark of Mondelēz International group.

What end of the year gifts do you give your students?

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Greenhouse Experiment Results

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When Ginger Ericson needed an example of a controlled experiment for her upcoming seventh-grade Life Science Distance Learning course, my coworker Stephen and I decided to test internet claims that microwaved water causes death or deformation in plants.

Now the plant experiment is complete, and it was a lot of fun. In retrospect, I would love to redo it using the things our team learned. However, the process of learning continues, and there’s plenty of room for us to revisit this project, and perhaps some of you can try it at home.

The Experiment

3 groups of 15 pots from the microwave water plant experiment

After the first signs of seed germination appeared, Krista and Ashley recorded our observations and measurements for four weeks. Our data outlined below involves twelve of the original fifteen pots.

When comparing plants, age is important, especially when dealing with plants that grow as rapidly as ours did. It really means very little to compare a plant that has been growing for six days to one that has been growing for only three days and then announce that the first plant is larger. The four Microwave Group pots germinated a few days later than the others, so the groups could not just be compared to each other on a given date. Instead, all the data presented shows the average height, leaf number, and flower number of each group by day after germination, which we defined as the first day a plant was recorded in the pot.

The average heights of the three groups were similar, but the Microwave Group plants were slightly behind the plants in the other groups.

chart of average plant height by days after germination for BJU Press plant experiment

The average numbers of leaves in the three groups were also similar, with the Stovetop Group being slightly behind the other two.

chart data measuring average number of leaves by days after germination for BJU Press plant experiment

It’s difficult to measure the average number of flowers. We took our measurements two to three times each week, and it is very possible that some flowers may have bloomed, been pollinated, and then died between two measurements. However, the data indicates that the Microwave Group plants began to flower before the others, had fewer flowers, and began to taper off before the other two groups. The Stovetop Group plants had also begun to taper off by the end of the experiment but had as many flowers as the plants in the Control Group. The number of flowers in the Control Group seemed to still be increasing.

The Results

At the end of any project, lessons should be learned that can be applied to the future. This experiment was no exception. Although we were very pleased with how this turned out,  some factors that were not controlled may have affected our results. If you’d like to set up this experiment, we would recommend these adjustments:

  1. Filter the water or use distilled water. Microwaving is a very inefficient method of boiling water, so nearly a quart of every gallon is evaporated. We used spring water, so the evaporated water left a good bit of precipitated calcium carbonate. Since the water boiled on the hotplate lost relatively little to evaporation, this phenomenon occurred to a far less extent. It is possible the excess calcium carbonate might have caused the smaller size observed in the plants in the Microwave Group.
  2. Take measurements every day. We took measurements two or three times a week, and that worked well with plant height and leaf number, but it may have caused some of the unusual results for the flower number. The fact that we used a plant variety specifically bred to complete its lifecycle in less than six weeks may have exacerbated this issue.
  3. Thin the plants at the beginning of the experiment so that each pot has the same number of plants. Some of our pots had only one plant, and others had as many as three. The resulting difference in competition could significantly affect all four measurements used.

What can we conclude?

The plants in the Microwave Group didn’t all die, and they didn’t all evidence horrible deformities—two results suggested on some websites. The plant height is curious, but so is the smaller number of leaves in the Stovetop Group. In the end, the small sample size prevents us from making broad generalizations, but we can conclude that plants do not seem greatly affected by microwaved water.

Keep an eye out for this experiment in our upcoming seventh-grade Life Science Distance Learning course!

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Elwood holds a BA in biology and an MA in English from Bob Jones University. After working with the video lesson department at BJU Press for five years, he now serves as a secondary-level science writer at BJU Press. When not working, he enjoys taking random college classes, reading, playing disc golf, and hanging out with his wife and three kids.

A Tale of Microwaves and Greenhouses

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Did you ever have one of those moments when you just wanted to test something for yourself? Many good ideas never progress beyond the thinking stage because of a lack of resources, but every once in a while, the opportunity to make that idea a reality presents itself. My coworker Stephen Garrison and I experienced this recently after discussing internet claims that microwaved water causes death or deformation in plants. During our discussion, we gradually realized that we didn’t have to just talk about it; this was something we could test ourselves.

Our conversation might have never have been anything more than another one of those unfulfilled good ideas if biological sciences teacher Ginger Ericson hadn’t needed an example of a controlled experiment for her upcoming seventh-grade Life Science Distance Learning course. Our idea seemed perfect because it would be a fairly simple experiment and because it would test a question that buzzes around the internet.

At the beginning, the biggest obstacle to our plan was finding a location to carry out our experiment. This time of year, temperatures can vary wildly in Greenville. Furthermore, the effects of the different water treatments, if any, would be diminished if the plants were exposed to rain. So we needed a controlled environment, one that filtered out factors such as rain and temperature fluctuations.

We were able to gain access to a fully climatized glass-metal greenhouse. This type of greenhouse is completely enclosed, so no rain can get to the plants inside, and the internal temperature can be kept constant.

Our setup was fairly simple.

  1. We filled fifteen four-inch pots with wet potting soil.

shoveling dirt into a pot for plants

  1. We planted three or four Brassica rapa (turnip) seeds in each pot.

turnip seeds in the palm of a person's hand

  1. Three groups received a random group of five pots:
    • a control group
    • a group to be treated with water previously boiled for five minutes on a hotplate
    • a group to be treated with water previously boiled for five minutes in a microwave

five pots of three groups for a science plant experiment

  1. We placed the pots in the greenhouse and allowed the seeds to germinate.

greenhouse used for BJU Press Science 7 plant experiment

  1. Now that the plants have germinated, we continue watering each group with the corresponding water treatment and recording measurements for
    • plant height,
    • number of leaves, and
    • number of flowers.

control group plant

These data should give us an indication of what effect, if any, the different types of water have on the plants. Check back with us in May to find out the results of this good idea turned into reality.

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Elwood holds a BA in biology and an MA in English from Bob Jones University. After working with the video lesson department at BJU Press for five years, he now serves as a secondary-level science writer at BJU Press. When not working, he enjoys taking random college classes, reading, playing disc golf, and hanging out with his wife and three kids.

Something to Celebrate

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WP-Story-Journal-2-2015My teacher friend Mary Beth invited me to come visit her kindergarten classroom. She had been reading aloud one the children’s books I wrote, and her students were ready for the last two chapters. “We thought it would be neat if you could come and finish the book for us,” she said. “My students would enjoy meeting a real live author.”

Before I even entered Mary Beth’s classroom, I could tell that for her, writing was something to celebrate. “Here are our snowman stories,” she said with a twinkly-eyed smile. “Some of the students dictated their stories, but many of them wrote their own.” I scanned the hall bulletin board decorated with painted snowmen sporting an eclectic mix of outerwear. I even noticed a story about a snowdog. Most of these South Carolina children had probably not seen a single snowflake since last winter, but obviously, their imaginations were healthy and active.

She opened the door to her room and began showing me around. “We’ve been talking about weather in science,” she said, indicating a large hanging chart decorated with rain and snow scenes and sunny beach pictures. A poem was also carefully lettered on the chart. “This is my poem. Don’t be too critical—it’s probably not very good. But my students were impressed that I actually wrote a poem.” I paused to read the four-stanza poem about types of weather, using a variety of age-appropriate words—and it was good.

When I sat down in the rocking chair with the children gathered on the rug in front of me, I could immediately tell that they loved being read to. Silence settled on them right away, and almost every eye stayed locked on my face as I read aloud. When I finished and asked for questions, a sea of hands went up. “Where did you get the idea for the kitten?” “Why did you write in chapters?” “Who drew the picture on the cover?”

Mary Beth walked to a shelf and took down a stack of stapled pages. “They’re very interested in books right now,” she said, “because we’ve just finished writing our own books.” I oohed and aahed over the books while here and there a student burst out with an enthusiastic comment about his or her story. “How many of you like to write?” I asked. Nearly every hand in the room shot up.

As I left Mary Beth’s room that day, I realized I was the privileged one—because I had met not just one, but an entire roomful of “real live authors.” I hope those students never lose the joy of writing that their teacher has worked so hard to instill in them. I hope they will never view writing as merely a chore to be done and a grade to be tallied. I hope they’ll always see writing as an art to be celebrated.

Apples for My Teachers

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Autumn is the season for apples. Nearly every teacher has been the recipient of an apple before—at least the glass, gold, or plastic variety if not a real one. Giving a teacher an apple is a student’s way of saying thank you for helping him or her understand something. An apple is both tart and sweet. Like apples, some lessons can be swallowed with joy, and others go down with a sharp tang. Today I would like to say thank you for both kinds of lessons. Here are some apples for my teachers.

Image of a basket full of apples next to yellow flowers.

To my kindergarten teacher—thank you for getting so excited when I told you I had trusted Jesus as my Savior the night before. Thank you for asking me to share the news with the other students. You gave me my first early taste of the magnitude of what Christ had done for me and the importance of sharing it with others.

To my first-grade teacher—thank you for cleaning the blood off my chin when I disobediently ran after you told me to walk and fell on the slippery floor. Thank you for still letting me be a Pilgrim in the Thanksgiving play the next day, and for not allowing the other kids to tease me about my stitches. I still have the scar, and I still have the memory of your kindness.

To my second-grade teacher—I remember all those red checkmarks on the clock page in my math book. I honestly thought I would grow up never being able to tell what time it was. Thank you for working a little extra with me so that I could understand.

To my fifth-grade teacher—thank you for not letting me get out of doing oral book reports, even when I cried at the thought of standing and speaking in front of the class. Now I stand in front of a class on a regular basis. I’m so glad you stretched me to trust God and overcome my fears.

To my high school English teacher—thank you for assigning us so much writing. Thank you for teaching us that we could write “I don’t know what to write” in our journals until we thought of more words to put down. I wrote that statement less and less often as the years went on because there was just so much to say, and I felt like you would be interested in whatever I put on the page.

To my high school math and science teachers—thank you for making me think. Thank you for making me work hard. Thank you for bringing joy even to subjects that were difficult for me.

To my high school speech teacher—thank you for letting me do duet acting with my best friend for the speech contest. You will probably never know how many nights I spent wakeful hours dreading that contest. But being able to act with a friend took almost all the fear away and actually made it fun. Thank you for teaching me that with God’s help, we can actually enjoy doing hard things.

To my high school history teacher—thank you for challenging me to think critically about the events in my history book. Thank you for teaching me that if we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we are in danger of repeating them.

To all my teachers—you would probably be surprised how often I still think of you. Now that I’m a teacher too, I realize how much I learned from you—not just from what you said, but from who you were and how you lived. I realize how you prayed, labored, and sacrificed to invest in my life. You deserve so much more than an apple. Thank you is the very least I can say. May the Lord bless you as richly as He has blessed me through you.