Tag: teaching culture

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Do You Celebrate Winter Solstice In Your Classroom?

Winter solstice is upon us! Is it something you celebrate or give recognition to in your classroom? If you don’t, you should start! It’s a great time to teach kids a little more science, culture, and history. Here are a few videos you can use in your classroom to give some background context on what winter solstice is. 

To bring culture into the equation, here’s a cool video put out by CBS on Ask An Elder. 

Overall, the celebration of the winter solstice is based on an appreciation for the winter season. This means lighting Yule logs, sipping on hot cocoa or cider, and enjoying a candlelit evening during the darkest night of the year. 

These are all activities you can incorporate in your classroom, or even in your home! A simple (battery-operated) candlelit lunch in the classroom is an easy, doable activity that can make a big impact on your students. 

A Yule log craft can also be a great conversation starter. 

You can bring Stonehenge into play as well by diving deep into how it relates to the winter solstice and maybe even work as a class or in small groups to build a replica.

A simple walk outside to take in the winter air and point out things everyone appreciates about winter can teach them the importance of winter solstice as well. 

Photo by Death to the Stock Photo

Winter solstice celebrations focus so much on light because it’s the darkest day of the year. Creating paper lanterns, making or sharing candles, or putting together candle crafts is a great way to celebrate. 

You can also find our book list for winter solstice here. 

What do you do to celebrate the winter solstice in your classroom? 

Cover photo by Death to the Stock Photo

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Picture Books For Chinese New Year

This is part of a series on writing booklists about holidays beyond Christmas. To read more about it, you can see it here.

Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year) is still a few months away, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be added to our list of holiday picture books! These books were fun to look up and discover new titles. The Chinese culture has so much to offer and learn about, so let’s dive into my top favorites!

The Runaway Wok

Ruby’s Chinese New Year

A New Year’s Reunion

Look! What Do You See?

Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas

What books are you reading for Chinese New Year? 

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A Picture Book List For Diwali

This is part of a series on writing booklists about holidays beyond Christmas. To read more about it, you can see it here.

Welcome to our list of favorite Diwali books! This holiday was a favorite of mine to research because of the colors involved with Diwali, making the illustrations in every book so fun! Here are my top four:

Festival of Colors by Kabir and Surishtha Sehgal

I love how this book is simple and on a child’s level, while still incorporating the Diwali jargon and vocabulary. It is also very inclusive of multiple races, showing that Diwali can be enjoyed by many! 

Lots of LIghts: A Story About Diwali by Kavita Sahai

This one is fun because elephants are the main characters that walk kids through what Diwali is, again, on their level. 

Rani Saves Diwali by Anita Badhwar

A princess saving Diwali! Such a fun book with cute illustrations. 

Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar

Binny is trying to tell her class about her favorite holiday, Diwali. And her peers love it!

What other Diwali books do you love reading to your class? How do you observe Diwali in your classroom or school?

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Merry Christmas! But What About Other Holidays? We Need More Picture Book Representation

Friends, I’ve written a lot of posts about Christmas picture books, but there are many, many people who don’t celebrate Christmas and have a different holiday they observe. And while finding book lists for Christmas is easy, it’s a little more difficult to find picture books for other holiday celebrations such as Hannauka or Diwali. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be blasting you with book list after book list for these other holidays. 

I’ll be covering
Diwali
Hanukkah
Las Posadas
Chinese New Year
Winter Solstice
Kwanzaa
Three Kings Day

Photos from pexels.com

Typically, I don’t like to recommend books unless I’ve held them in the flesh or even on an eReader and read every page to know if it’s something I really want to share with friends. However, our little, local library has limited access to some of these holiday books. I made a friendly suggestion to our children’s librarian that we should add some of these new titles and she agreed and promised to do what she could! 

Because of this, I have had to get creative and watch read alouds on YouTube or do research on Goodreads on some of these picture books to make sure it is something I truly want to recommend to you. 

Another great resource I have found is this free printable of different holidays with QR codes to scan that you can share with your students to learn more about each holiday. 

So happy holidays and stay tuned for lots and lots of books that will help you teach your students about multiple holidays, not just Christmas! 

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Learning Acceptance And Tolerance While Teaching Christmas Traditions

In 4th grade, I had this teacher who was nothing short of magnificent. She would get so excited about everything that just had a way of lighting a fire in everyone to learn. 4th grade, in my opinion, has some of the best curricula as well, state history! Since I grew up in Idaho she taught us all about Lewis and Clark, the pioneers, and the Appaloosa horse, our state horse. 

She also did a read-aloud every day after lunch. We would come in from recess, turn off the lights, and she would read to us as if we were in the story ourselves. I distinctly remember her reading Earthquake Terror and being so terrified myself because I was convinced I was in the water with these two siblings holding onto logs for dear life. Because of her, I will always 

One of my favorite units she taught was about Christmas around the world. It wasn’t required curriculum to teach, especially now with common core state standards, but something she felt was important to include in her teaching each December. Looking back, I am realizing it didn’t just teach us what each country saw Santa Claus as, but also taught us inclusion. Tolerance. Diversity. Loving. Acceptance. And more. 

Here is a great article on a few things I learned about Swiss Christmas.

We spent time researching multiple countries, what they ate around the holidays, traditions they have, and the values they held close. At the end of the unit, we had one big potluck of each type of food that we were even able to try ourselves! Talk about exposure to culture! I also want you to understand that I grew up in the sticks of Idaho. Ucon, Idaho to be exact. In Ucon, there was one elementary school, and then we had to “go into town” to attend Jr. High and high school. It was and still is, a farming community with very little diversity. So my teacher taking the time to teach us culture and give us exposure to something different was huge. 

I’m grateful for a teacher that took the effort to give us these opportunities and teach us beyond the test, especially in the early 2000s when being less aware of others was more common. I am not sure if she is still teaching to this day, but if she is, I cannot imagine the impact she is making on this world, given the impact she had in just my life.