Last week, my class continued their world travels with trips to Australia, England, Israel, and Sweden. Oh what fun we had!
In Australia, we read The Australian Twelve Days of Christmas by Heath McKenzie. This book taught us about animals we might find down under (like kookaburra in a gum tree) and also gave us a great chance to compare and contrast this version with the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas song that they already knew (a partridge in a pear tree). We noticed that both versions repeated each of the items again and again and that they both counted down from 12. These are big things for a three year-old to realize! Christmas crackers were made: cookie cutters were dipped in paint to make prints on white paper and then wrapped around toilet paper tubes. My students put candy inside as they tied them up, making one for themselves and each of their siblings. They took them home to share and open.
In Australia, we read The Australian Twelve Days of Christmas by Heath McKenzie. This book taught us about animals we might find down under (like kookaburra in a gum tree) and also gave us a great chance to compare and contrast this version with the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas song that they already knew (a partridge in a pear tree). We noticed that both versions repeated each of the items again and again and that they both counted down from 12. These are big things for a three year-old to realize! Christmas crackers were made: cookie cutters were dipped in paint to make prints on white paper and then wrapped around toilet paper tubes. My students put candy inside as they tied them up, making one for themselves and each of their siblings. They took them home to share and open.
Our trip to England included looking at Christmas cards, a strong tradition in Great Britain. Our school gets a lot of Christmas card front pages, which are so fun to make crafts with and also, really great for retelling the Christmas nativity story and The Night Before Christmas. We read The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. This is story plays with common fairy tales as familiar characters open little envelopes with holiday messages inside. I remember loving this book as a child, and my students did, too! Stamps, stickers, and staplers turned discarded bulletin board borders into Christmas crowns to wear on our heads like the children in England do this time of year.
One student in my class is moving to Israel with his family, so this day was extra special to our class. We ate cupcakes decorated with the Israeli flag in blue icing. We spun dreidels and talked about how some children don't celebrate Christmas, but celebrate other holidays. We read the Birds of Bethlehem by Tomie dePaola. My students covered six pointed stars cut from cereal boxes (the BEST crafting cardboard) with aluminum foil. Then, we used spray bottles filled with glue, water, and blue paint to sprinkle the stars. As we placed torn up tissue paper on it, the students watched the white tissue absorb our spray, changing to blue as it did. The stars are far from the best looking project we have done, (:/) but they really enjoyed making them.
We ended our week with a trip to Sweden for Saint Lucia's Day (a day early). Here, we made wreaths of candles for our heads to celebrate St. Lucy's Day. We glued green paper scraps onto paper plates and painted wine corks white for the candles, hammering the corks onto the circles to make them stay upright.
The best part of this week was our reference books. I found books on each country from the children's nonfiction section at the library. My students asked questions about each location, like "What do they drive there?" and "What do people drink and eat there?" Then, we used the index and table of contents to look up where to find the information and found it!
One more of world travels before the real holiday trips begin!
P.S. We broke our pinata open!
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