Daily Assignment #27: Holidays

For the month of December 2011 here is a list of some of the religious/ethnic holidays:

Dec. 5  Ashura, Islamic/Muslim
        6  St. Nicholas Day, International
        8  Bodhi Day, Buddhist
       12 Virgin of Guadalupa, Mexico
       13 Santa Lucia Day, Sweden
       16-25  Las Posadas, Mexico
       21-28  Hanukkah, Jewish
       25  Christmas, Christians, Roman Catholics, International
       26-Jan. 1  Kwanzaa, African Americans

What should happen in the classroom during this holiday season?

Some teachers select several different holidays to teach about religious/ethnic traditions.  Other teachers just share holiday traditions for one or two religions/ethnic groups.  Another approach would to be to ask for parent volunteers to teach their religious/ethnic holiday traditions.  An another approach might be to do nothing at all.

I've done it all.  For me, I found the best approach was to ask for parent volunteers to come in and do a 30-40 minute presentation.  If I didn't know the parent well, I would ask them to share with me their lesson plan in advance.  In this way, I could help them with appropriateness for the age group and timing. The parents were always well prepared.  It would be an amazing lesson and better than what I would have done.

There would be years when only one parent would come in and I would need to teach 1-2 more holidays. Then other years there might be 3 different parents who would come in to share 3 different holidays.  If no one volunteered then I would teach Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa, or a holiday that reflected the population in my class.

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Best Effort,
Linda103