Christmas is celebrated in many parts of the world, and the traditions for celebrating it vary from one country and region to another. This makes it a great way to study geography, and we also have ideas for art, math, English, and science under specific countries.
Basic plans:
- Map it! Travel the world, using maps, globes, or Google Earth. For each country that you visit, seek out some basic information, such as the music, games, foods, decorations, and other traditions associated with Christmas. Find out how to say “Merry Christmas” in the language of each country and add a label with the phrase to your map. A physical map makes a wonderful bulletin board as you add pictures, paragraphs, or objects to the map as you learn new things about Christmas celebrations in the nations you study. A Google Earth tour can be created in the same way, and shared with the world online.
- Graph it! Find out the percentage of people in each country celebrating Christmas, the average amount of money spent for the celebration, and other quantifiable data and compare. Use online pen pals, surveys, or old fashioned postcards and phones to take surveys of different parts of the world, asking about experiences and opinions, and then create pie graphs expressing what you’ve learned. Create a bulletin board of different graphs, or collect them into a Christmas Data book.
- Make it! Make a traditional decoration, food, or gift from each nation. This can be approached as an art project, or as a math experience as you measure, cut, and plan. Have students bring recipes from home for the foods traditional for their families’ holiday celebrations, or search for recipes using the search engines special to different countries (for example, search “Christmas foods” at www.google.com.au, clicking “pages from Australia”). Put a Christmas tree in your classroom and add handmade ornaments for each country as you study — most of our Christmas Around the World Lesson Plans include a paper craft for this purpose.
Online resources:
- Christmas in Mexico Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Australia Lesson Plans
- Christmas in England Lesson Plans
- Christmas in France Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Germany Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Ghana Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Italy Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Spain Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Japan Lesson Plans
- Christmas in the Netherlands Lesson Plans
- Christmas at the North Pole Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Russia Lesson Plans
- Christmas in South Africa Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Sweden Lesson Plans
- Christmas in Switzerland Lesson Plans
- Teachnology has a lesson plan for charting the characteristics of the Christmas gift-bringers around the world.
- Alex has a basic lesson (use the internet to research Christmas celebrations around the world) with a PowerPoint Template to guide kids. Put students in small groups and have each group choose a country to research, and then have them prepare their slideshow, finishing up with a presentation of the skideshows. Do everyone a favor and teach students the basics of successful PowerPoints:
- Have one main point for each slide. This is great practice for other kinds of writing. Compare the slides to paragraphs in an essay or research paper. If you use the template, a topic is furnished for the students. Depending on grade leve, this can be a good time to discuss the difference between a topic and a main point, how to narrow a topic, etc.
- Choose a good image that communicates the main point well. This is a good time to teach about copyright, too. Have students look for Creative Commons licensed images or take their own photos. Accepting the attitude that copyright doesn’t matter in the classroom is a bad example at best; at worst, it’s an invitation to piracy in later life.
- Put information succinctly in three brief bullet points. If students need to expand, they should do it on paper and be prepared to explain further while people look at the slide.
Books:
- TCR’s Celebrate Christmas Around the World gives numerous classroom ideas.
- Christmas Around the World by Mary D. Lankford has lots of information .
