December Engagement Ideas for this Festive Season

Happy holidays from our Peachjar family to your school district family! There’s so much to celebrate during this month filled with life and laughter and to reflect on as the year comes to a close. From warm winter wishes, to cozy crossword puzzles, to planning for an exciting 2024, we’ve got a few ideas for you to touch base with families in your district and stay connected during this busy month.

Nobel Prize Day
December 10th is Nobel Prize Day. The Nobel Prize, named for Alfred Nobel, and its tradition stretch back over a century, with the first prize given in 1901. Prize awards are given annually on December 10th in Nobel’s memory and award accomplishments in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. Consider hosting a Nobel Prize event, welcoming students, faculty, and possibly family to come and learn about this year’s prize awards. They can share thoughts and questions, stimulating dialogue and learning through networking on projects that make significant contributions to the world we live in.

Crossword Puzzle Day
Crossword Puzzle Day is December 21st—who doesn’t love a good crossword puzzle? The opportunities here are endless for fun! Create a crossword puzzle about your community to send home. You can write them from scratch or utilize a crossword puzzle generator (there are many free options available online). Once it’s designed, send it out to families and encourage them to fill them out together. Create clues using fun facts about your school district and include your entire community. Not only does this give you an excellent opportunity to highlight your district’s community, it lets you involve the community. Crossword puzzles also provide a brain-stimulating activity that can positively impact mental health and memory.

New Year’s Resolutions
Did you know that the concept of New Year’s resolutions stretches back thousands of years? It’s believed that the ancient Babylonians were the first to make resolutions for the upcoming year. Over the millennia and cultures since, resolutions have evolved but are still made. We bet you’ve got big plans for 2024 and that your community does, too! With the year coming to a close, it might be fun to create a space for your district community to share their resolutions and goals for 2024. Doing this allows you to source feedback from key stakeholders—students, parents, guardians, staff, and faculty—while allowing everyone to work together. Is your community wanting to be more involved in how your district supports families with resources? Is there another opportunity to create connections? Collective goal-setting can be an excellent motivator because it both gets folks excited and keeps them accountable. If you receive a significant amount of ideas, you can utilize additional feedback to narrow down what is feasible for your district next year.

Peachjar Extra Credit
With the holidays come some downtimes and a chance to check out new ideas for the new year. Can you believe it has been over a year since we launched our YouTube channel? What a wealth of knowledge we have accumulated! If your goal for 2024 is to learn more skills for community engagement or simply to add more to your school PR toolkit, we’ve got you covered. Check out our episodes on Marketing and Branding for Schools, Public Records Act and Freedom of Information Act requests, The Importance of Community Engagement, and more! We also have a video about professional development and why you should join a professional networking group. We truly create this content with you in mind and we've got many more video ideas lined up so be sure to like and subscribe. Have a video idea for us with a skill you’re looking for? Drop a comment and let us know!

Thank You
From the bottom of our hearts, our Peachjar team wishes you a happy holiday season and a very happy new year! Year over year, we are incredibly honored to partner with schools and programs around the country to provide students and their families with access to resources for success outside of the classroom. We hope to see you all very soon in 2024!

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