Few are aware of how teachers really decide how to give a grade. The Teacher's Grade Decider lets the secret out: it is a handcrafted wooden pendulum desk toy and a lighthearted gift for any teacher. Give the pendulum a flick and let it settle on a grade. The outcomes run A, B, C, D and F. We make each one in our family's workshop in Hudson, Florida. Creative Crafthouse has been making wooden puzzles and games since 2003.

Set it on the corner of a teacher's desk and it earns its spot. The teacher can give it a flick after a long night of grading, and students will want a turn to see what their quiz "really" earned. It functions as a fun desk toy and an activity for students, and it looks good doing it. The base is rubberwood, and our laser burns the title and the five letter grades right into it. A magnet waits under the surface at each letter, while the pendulum hangs from a metal screw eye on an arm that never moves, so the swing ends with the pendulum pulled onto a single grade. Red felt on the underside keeps the desktop from getting scratched. It is a novelty, not a real grading tool, and that is the fun of it.

It arrives nicely packaged, with four pieces inside: the engraved base, the pendulum, its arm and one screw, along with a printed assembly sheet. Have a large Phillips screwdriver handy, since one is not in the box. Flip the base over, find the small hole on the red felt side, and turn the screw through it into the arm. That is the whole job, and the Decider is ready for its first verdict. Put together, it stands 5.5 inches tall on a footprint 7.7 inches long and 3.75 inches deep, which leaves plenty of desk for the stack of papers still waiting to be graded.

Engraving goes on the front of the base. Add a teacher's name and it takes the place of "Teacher's" in the title, so the piece can read "Mr. Janelle's Grade Decider"; any other message is engraved along the bottom edge of the front, and either one can run up to 45 characters. Give it as a Christmas or end-of-year present from the class, as a thank-you during teacher appreciation week, or as a send-off for a teacher heading into retirement, and add a wood message card with your note laser engraved on it, packed right in with the gift. Standard orders leave our Florida workshop within one business day, and personalized orders, with engraving or a card, within two.

Buying for a math teacher? Our Napier's Bones makes a good companion gift, and the rest of the line lives in our Decision Makers collection.