|
|
Each student
gets their very own Passport! Each day we
visit a new country! Students get to stamp
their passport daily! At the end of
our journeys each student has a Passport to
remember our trips around the world!
|
( My AMAZING
assistant made these passports! They are darling!)
DAY 1
DESTINATION: America
Christmas
-
We read
My First
Christmas
-
We
discuss our family traditions!
-
We trim
our classroom tree together and sing
Christmas carols.
|
|
DAY 2
DESTINATION: Mexico
Los Pasoda
- We read The Little
Poinsettia
- We discuss a Los Posada
- We make Piņatas!
- We listen to Holiday music in
Spanish!
DAY 3
DESTINATION: Africa
Kwanzaa
|
|
-
We read
My First
Kwanzaa
-
We
learn some Swahili!
-
We
follow the tradition of dressing in
bright colored clothing
and stringing bright colored beads! The
students get to make
their very own beaded bracelet!
-
On the
seventh day of Kwanzaa we give our gifts
away!
Students give their bracelet to a
friend!
|
DAY 4
DESTINATION: Holland
In Dutch Happy/Merry Christmas is 'Prettige
Kerstfeest'
- I teach the
students about Christmas in Holland! (see below)
- We
compare/contrast Christmas in America and
Holland.
- We place Easter
grass as hay and a carrot in one of our shoes
and place it outside our classroom door.
- Saint Nicholas
and Black Pete leave us gifts in our shoes!
- I use gold
coins, chocolates, and sweet tarts as gifts!
The Dutch, or the people from
Holland, start their Christmas celebration sometime
in the middle of November. Saint Nicholas, or
Sinter Klaas, as he
is known in Holland, is the main part of their
celebration. Sinter Klaas and his helper
Zwarte Peiten, or Black Petehand
out the presents to the children.
On December 5th, the children
put out their
wooden shoes and
fill them with carrots and hay. They do this to feed
Sinter Klaas's horse. Sinter Klaas and Black Pete
take the carrots and hay for the horse, and then
fill the shoes with presents. On the morning of
December 6th, the children find the presents in
their shoes.
The farmers in Holland blow
long horns at sunset each evening during the
Christmas period. The horns are blown over water
wells which makes the sound really loud. The horns
are blown to annouce the birth of Christ.
A popular decoration in the
Netherlands is the so-called
"advent-star", a
starshaped light, to be hung in the window.
http://www.santas.net/dutchchristmas.htm
http://achristmas.com/netherlands.html
http://www.cvc.org/christmas/nland.htm
DAY 5
DESTINATION: Israel
Hanukkah
|
|
Students get to
weave a placemat at our Art Center! We use
our placemats to eat on when we make Latkes!
|
Students get to go
Christmas shopping through
magazines! Students cut out what they want for
Christmas and write about what they want! I put
their Christmas note cards in their stocking! At
the end of the week...students find a real candy
cane in their stocking to take home for the
Holidays!
At the Math Center
students measure different objects using
snowflake erasers, candy canes, dreidels, and gold
coins! After
measuring these objects--students get to play
Driedel, Driedel!
( I bought these manipulatives at Party America!)
Students get to make a Handprint Tile as a
Christmas gift for their parent/parents. Ask
a local tile shop for leftover tile and purchase
these simple, gold picture stands at Wal-Mart
for $.86 and you have a darling keepsake
for moms and dads in your classroom!
Students get to make their own Christmas
tree to eat! Students frosted a small waffle
cone green and used sprinkles to decorate their
tree! Very cute!
We
make Santa wind socks! It is as easy as
color, cut, and staple!
