Walpole Public Schools

When we develop perfect lessons, everything goes according to plan. Students are attentive, follow our anticipated timetable, complete work in a timely manner and, if finished early, silently read an engaging book while waiting for the next activity.

We all know that perfect lessons never happen. To paraphrase the famous quote, "No plan survives contact with students." Especially in December!
Sometimes, to survive the month, we need a "filler" activity for those times when you know your kids need a fun little distraction. Great teachers keep filler activities in their back pocket, ready to deploy as needed, to provide a little fun learning to fill in the gaps between activities.
Welcome to the Google Santa Tracker!The Google Santa Tracker is a set of web-based games and activities that are Chromebook-friendly (and, stunningly, phone-friendly, too). These include coding-based games, creativity activities, reading explorations, and cute videos.
It's great for your students or for kids at home...

• "If you finish your work early."
• "You've earned a few minutes of fun time." 
• "Help! We have 'indoor recess!'" 

Why is it called Santa Tracker? Google's original Santa Tracker was an app to follow Santa's progress on Christmas Eve, showing which country or region he was in at any given time. This wasn't an original idea (NORAD has had a Santa tracker for over 60 years that originally worked by phone call!) but Google integrated it with Google Earth and made it cute. In 2018, Google added a huge suite of games and activities for kids to do in the month leading up to the big night.
The best way for kids to use Google Santa Tracker is to just go to the site and explore. But if you, as the teacher or parent, would like to focus kids on something educational, I suggest visiting the family guide which shows the activities with the most educational content (as opposed to just little games or videos). I personally love the coding-based games (Code Lab and Code Boogie) and the creativity games.
Santa Tracker is obviously designed with elementary children in mind, but is actually one of those "fun for everyone" types of websites. Even jaded, world-weary high school students can find things to do in the Google Santa Tracker. Heck, I'll even play some of the little games sitting in a waiting room or something.
For those of you worried about data privacy, there are no accounts or logins for Google Santa Tracker, so there's no extra data about the kids to collect and share (beyond the normal Google Privacy Policy). Just visit the site and have fun!
And if you get a free moment, maybe embrace your inner elf and try some of the Google Santa Tracker games yourself! (I promise I won't tell!)
 Tom