Just in case your students are among those who tend to get distracted by holiday activities, we have some tips for keeping them task-oriented while indulging their festive spirits. As candy quotients increase in the students’ diets and they are increasingly more aware of costumes, parties, and scary movies than classwork and homework, providing content on the subject matter they're already gabbing about can create a more engaged learning environment. Charity Kinneer demonstrated that in her blog Teaching “The Hunger Games” this spring.

Here are ideas for incorporating the season into your classroom:

1. Use Georgia Stories to have students imagine and write their own fantastic stories from podcasts of Georgia History. (Email education@gpb.org for teacher and student logins.)

2. If you're in a poetry lesson now, encourage students to write a shaped poem or wordle on the fall theme.

3. During technology sessions, have students interact with PBSKids.org where they can hone math and literacy skills. Dot's Story Factory allows students to write stories (with or without Dot's help) and even use the mouse to illustrate the stories.

4. Check out Georgia Stories "Kehoe House" for a spooky, historical look at Savannah.