In a given school year, one or two weeks of class time are inevitably eaten up by the calendar. There are the days before Thanksgiving, winter break, and spring break—when some students have left for early vacations, those left behind seem off the wall, and most teachers are fried and ready for a break, too. Then, you have state testing days, snow days, and random assemblies that interfere with some, but not all, of your classes. Though it’s easy to write these days off as do-nothing days, you can maximize this time and shift the focus back to content while capitalizing on the unique atmosphere of the day. This month's column provides some ideas for making the most of these “lost days.”