Christmas Around the World

In December, my lesson plan focuses on holiday traditions around the world. Each day, we look at our class globe, pretend to pack a suitcase full of appropriate clothes (flip flops or winter boots?), and do some yoga poses to represent planes as we fly to a new country. Then, we read a book about Christmas, mostly about or from the destination of the day, work on projects representing Christmas traditions these, and talk briefly about each country.

This week, we visited Germany first. We ate Gingerbread cookies and talked about how these treats decorate some trees in German households. We cut and stapled our own advent calendar chains to count down the days until Christmas, because advent calendars are a big thing in Germany. First, the kids cut their own strips (yeah for scissor skill practice!). Then, they put them in patterns (math!). Finally, they stapled them in loops (fine motor skills!) and counted to 24 as they went (more math!). Each day we remove one loop and count the days until Santa's big arrival.

The next day, our travels took us to Mexico where we read The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola. Using a real poinsettia for inspiration, we turned toilet paper tubes into flower ornaments. For the first time ever, I tried paper mache. So. Much. Fun. So. Much. Mess. We made our own pinata to break at the end of the month, like the children in Mexico do on Christmas.

When we visited Brazil, we read Christmas Around the World by Disney Book Group (the inspiration and resource for most of this month's planning). We tried to mimic this awesome idea substituting a glowing Christmas tree for buildings in the firework pictures. Although our representations weren't nearly as cute, my students loved the idea of fireworks to celebrate!

Friday, we traveled to Holland and made Kruidnootjes together which was so much fun. This links to a fabulous recipe with easy instructions for use with kids. I substituted Trader Joe's Speculoos Crunchy Cookie Butter for the speculaas spice, because I couldn't find it in my grocery store and didn't want to take the time to make my own. They were pretty tasty cookies! 

During circle time, we placed our shoes outside our classroom and miraculously, they were filled with candy and small presents when we checked them later! We guessed that Sinterklaas had stopped by for a visit!

Feliz Navidad! Feliz Natal! Vrolijk Kerstfeest! Frohe Weihnachten!