During the month of December, we learn about the different holidays around the world. This is a great unit that allows the students to make connections to their own culture and share their traditions with their classmates. We also open it up to parents to visit our classroom and talk with the students about their holidays and traditions. As teachers, we feel it is important for the families to share their holidays not only with the students, but with us teachers. It is wonderful learning opportunity for all of us! Below you will see some of the activities we do for the different celebrations.
*Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of the students celebrating all of the holidays we learned about in class. Next year, I'll make sure to have my camera battery charged!
ST. LUCIA DAY
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| All the girls in the class created crowns for St. Lucia Day by glueing pre-cut green squares, red circles for the berries, and candles onto a sentence strip. |
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The finished product!
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| For St. Lucia Day, the boys glued stars onto their sentence strip. |
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| The finished product! |
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| The finished project! |
RAMADAN and EID
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| One of our kindergarten parents came to the classroom and spoke to all of the kindergarten students about Ramadan and Eid. This was really special for all of us as learned more about our students who celebrate these holidays. The students were excited to share their family traditions with one another. Our kindergarten parent volunteer and her son wore their traditional clothing, read a story about the night before Ramadan, and shared some of their favorite food that they love to eat with their family members. |
CHRISTMAS
After we read several fiction and nonfiction stories about Christmas, the students painted pine cones and then rolled them in glitter (or as the kindergarteners call it, "SPARKLES!"). After they were dry, I attached a string to each pine cone so the students could either hang the ornament on their Christmas tree or on a door knob at home. They looked super cute and so sparkly!
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| She's showing off her great project! |
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| So adorable! |
WINTER CLASS PARTY
I wish I captured more photos from this amazing day, but unfortunately, I was racing around the room with the kiddos all day trying to prepare for winter break! For our classroom party, we had a Polar Express party that lasted for the whole day. The day began with the students wearing their pajamas to school and bringing in a stuffed animal or a pillow to use for our movie portion of the day.
Some of the activities that we did were the following:
1. Read the story The Polar Express
2. Created a three car train. On the first car, we wrote the beginning of the story. On the second car, we wrote the middle of the story; and on the third car, we wrote about the end of the story. We displayed our train on the door of our classroom.
3. The students wrote about a place where they would want to visit on a train.
4. We made conductor hats using a pattern and a sentence strip
5. We watched The Polar Express movie and got cozy in our classroom.
*It was a very busy morning!
In the afternoon, the room parents came to the school to help us manage a rotating Polar Express party. All three kindergarten classrooms participated in this fun event. One classroom was the snack room where the students had hot cocoa and sugared donuts. In the second classroom, the students played different holiday games; and in the third classroom, the students created a small craft. The party lasted for about 1 hour and it was so much fun to have the students switch rooms and travel on their "imaginary Polar Express train" to get to each room.
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| Here is a picture of the students right before the movie began! |
