I apologize for not updating sooner. I was at NCCAT for a seminar and then we had a snow day and then all of a sudden we were out of school for Christmas break! It is amazing how quickly that hits each year! It seems like only yesterday I was getting my new little ones for the year and we were just getting to know each other. Now our journey through Kindergarten is halfway over!!
This time of year is my very favorite because there are SO many great books that we can read for the holidays. One that we read, Christmas Magic was really fun. We read about the little girl and her holiday traditions and then we took class time to talk about our own holiday traditions. I really enjoyed sharing and learning the special things that we each do around Christmastime. I learned that many of us have Christmas trees up, some of us have advent calendars, some of us watch Christmas movies, and some of us go visit relatives. I loved hearing all of the stories and really letting the children learn what a "tradition" was and how now matter what you do, it is your family tradition and it is very special. We also learned how people all over the world celebrate Christmas. Would you believe that in Australia Santa surfs up to picnics?!
We learned about the holiday of Kwanzaa and how it involves lots of famly and community. What a great way for us to talk about values and what is important to us and to our families. We learned that people who celebrate Kwanzaa also light a type of candleabra called a Kinara. The children immediately were able to connect and compare this to the Menorah and it helped us to see how holidays can be the same and different all at once!
We also learned about Las Posadas and Mary and Joseph's journey looking for a place to stay so that they could have their baby. To celebrate this holiday, we made our own drama where we dressed up and reenacted this story. In Mexico, children go from house to house for 8 nights where they are turned away. We didn't have 8 nights, so we went from classroom to classroom on the last day of school. They each turned us away, but we were welcomed finally at our Winter Holidays Celebration, our ninth stop!
Our Winter Holidays Celebration was absolutely wonderful! I have to give a huge thank you to all of the parents who made this possible! We were able to experience a little bit from each of the holidays we had been learning so much about. We started out by hearing the story, Jingle Bells and learning about how we all celebrate. Then children got to go to different centers for each holiday. At the Hanukkah centers children were able to play the driedel game and taste latkes and applesauce. At the Kwanzaa center children made mkeke mats and tasted different kinds of fruit. At the Christmas Center children got to make their very own jingle bells and decorate a reindeer cupcake. And finally at the Las Posadas center the children got to make a poinsetta craft and also their very own mini pinata, which is an important symbol of this holiday.
I hope everyone has a very wonderful break and a great time celebrating whatever holiday you celebrate with your friends and family.
Looking forward to seeing the kids in 2011 :)
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