Hey, everybody! I’ve got a brand new book making project that’s just PERFECT for Kindergarten, TK, or first grade! It’s called “My Holiday Traditions Around the World Number Book” and I can’t wait to share it with you! It goes along perfectly with my existing Holiday Traditions Around the World book; in fact, it uses parts of the same illustrations! So if you like that book, you’ll probably like this one, too!
This project is a fun, easy reader for kids to make when learning about holiday traditions around the world. In it, the kids make the illustrations for their own easy reader book that gives just “the gist” of ten different holiday traditions, all told in a rhyming number poem. The little crafty illustrations are a great follow up activity to reading our Holiday Traditions Around the World book, (or reading about these holiday traditions from ANY books, really!)
Plus, it gives children a chance to practice writing their numbers AND their emergent reading skills at the same time! The holiday traditions included are: Christmas & Santa (United States), Hanukkah (Israel), the Christmas Tree (Germany), Las Posadas (Mexico), Three Kings Day (Spain & Latin America), the Christmas & the Jul Nisse (Denmark & Sweden), Diwali (India), Eid-ul-Fitr (Middle East), Nativity Scenes (England), Kwanzaa (United States). There is a shortened version of this book in the file as well, with only five holidays included for those teachers with limited instructional time to complete the book.
Here is the text of the book, along with notes on which tradition and country is on each page in parenthesis.
Recommended Lesson Plan:
I recommend that you plan on doing just one holiday/page per day. The easiest way to do this is to first read the page of the Holiday Traditions Around the World book to the children that they are going to be focusing on, and then do the art project. For example, if you are going to be doing the page on Diwali, read them the Diwali page in the book first. Of course, you may have other resources that you may wish to use to teach about each holiday as well! Any existing resources will do!
At this point, I show my students my teacher sample of the book they are making, and together we “read” the whole book/poem together. (They chant along while I read!) I find it especially effective to write up the text on sentence strips and put it on a pocket chart for the class to read along with, looking for words or letters that they may know, etc.
Then, show the children how to do the page that they will be doing that day. Discuss how to form the number that is on the page, and how many objects that number represents.
Some other things I have done that also enhance each lesson are: (Click on link for more information.)
– Find each country on Google Earth and “fly there” with the children to take a look.
– Do a related STEM project.
– Do guided drawing with something from the book. (Here is another Santa Guided Drawing lesson.)
– Sing any songs that you might know about those holidays.
– Color the student pictures included in the Holiday Traditions Around the World book.
– Give children their own student copy of the Holiday Traditions Around the World book, (included in the file.)
I hope you have fun with this book! I love making books with my kids, and we are almost always in the middle of one! If you would like to see more of them, just visit this page and you can see the rest!
Happy teaching!
-Heidi
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