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Holidays Around the World Made Easy

Holidays Around the World Made Easy

One of my favorite units to teach is about holidays around the world in December. No matter what grade I teach, I include this in my lesson plans, because I love learning and teaching about cultures around the world! Just because this is a busy time of year does not mean you can’t bring holidays from around the world into your classroom! I’m here to help make teaching holidays around the world in December EASY and FUN!
I believe that the more we can weave themes and topics, like Holidays Around the World, into our normal routines, the better our students will understand them and the better our classroom climate will be! We all know how our students tend to get a bit antsy this time of year, so changing up the theme without changing the routine will keep them engaged and having fun! Here are some of my best tips for your Holidays Around the World lesson plans!

Holidays Around the World Morning Meetings

Your class meetings are an awesome place to introduce different holidays celebrated around the world and give students the opportunity to learn how the holidays are celebrated. I like to spend a couple of days on each holiday, and we learn how people celebrating the holiday greet each other and different traditions and must-haves that are a part of their celebrations.

I also love reading aloud books about each holiday to really help students get a picture of the celebrations! You can also find different games that kids play during the festivities and play them as a class, like the ones in my Holidays Around the World Morning Meeting Slides.

Holidays around the World for elementary students can be a great way to widen their perspective and help them experieince different cultures. But doing the research yourself before teaching about these holidays could be a lot of work! Good news: I’ve done the work for you! Grab my Holidays Around the World Morning Meeting Slides for your class meetings, complete with introduction, greeting, share, activity, and message slides for each holiday and recommended books, crafts, callbacks, and more. Click here to check out the bundle for your holidays around the world lessons!

Holidays Around the World Easy Room Transformation

You probably just let out a big sigh or rolled your eyes when you read this heading. DON’T CLICK AWAY! I promise this will not be expensive or hard. In fact, you probably already have most of what you need! It doesn’t have to be Instagram-worthy – it can be as simple as sticking some butcher paper up on your wall. YOU DO YOU.
Transforming your room is an EASY way to get students excited and buying into this theme. Here are my favorite ways to transform your classroom for holidays around the world:
  • Get (or make) flags of the countries you will be studying or just a variety of flags. This one on Amazon is less than $10 for 82 feet of flags! Great to hang around your classroom, and, for more impact, intertwine with twinkle lights! Have students try to find the flags of the countries you study, too!
  • Make sure you’ve got a world map to mark your travels!
  • If you want to get fancy, get some school butcher paper and create an airplane outside your door or inside the walls of your classroom!
  • Plastic tablecloths are an inexpensive way to add color! Red seems to be a popular holiday color in several countries, so you may choose to go that route! You can also cover your tables with butcher paper! 
  • See if you can collect some of the holiday icons to display in your classroom, or make them out of butcher paper! I’m sure parents would be willing to let you borrow some items if you need them! You can also draw them on white paper and have the students color them in!
  • Give each student a passport to put a stamp every time you “visit” a new country! Paradise Praises has a free download that looks like it would be perfect! You can also get some blank passports from Amazon! 

Preparing for Holidays around the World

This unit can be a hefty workload as you research, plan, and execute these lessons. I would recommend asking the students’ families for help! I’m sure they would love to share about their culture’s holiday traditions! You can have them share about their holiday traditions, bring in decorations or important pieces to the holiday, and even bring in traditional food to share! If you’re short on time, you could incorporate that time into a center, where the family member shares to each group of students, instead of the whole class. 

Holidays Around the World in Morning Meeting

Use your class meetings to introduce different holidays around the world that you’re studying! You can have students greet each other with the holiday greeting in each language. If you have a student that celebrates that holiday, you can ask him/her to teach the class how to say the greeting. If you don’t have an in-class resource, you can find most of the holiday greetings for different December holidays around the world on YouTube!
Your activities could be a special activity or game that the culture does around the holidays! This article from Parents.com has ten GREAT games for you. This post has two more that your students would love, to go with Germany and Mexico! You can also have playdough challenges where you give each student some playdough and tell them to make one of the holiday icons in 5 minutes! Then you get to look at all of their masterpieces and see whose creation is the closest to the actual icon!
The message portion of your Morning Meeting would be a great place to incorporate direct instruction of the culture and holiday you’re learning about. You can write a message to your students with information in it, or just have a discussion, show pictures, etc. about the culture and holiday traditions!

Holidays Around the World in Math

It’s easy to integrate Holidays around the World into ELA, but it can prove a bit more difficult for Math. Here are some of my favorite math activities for learning about Holidays Around the World:
  • Have students figure out how far away the countries you are studying are from you! Great for research and working with large numbers. You can also have students figure out the most cost-effective way to get from your town to a place whose culture you’re learning about. This would be a fun and real-world project for older students!
  • Have a math party, or incorporate some of the ideas in this blog post from Around the Kampfire in your math centers! Linda is a genius with these activities!
  • Amanda Stitt has a 5th Grade Math Project which is another great option if you’re short on planning time! It looks amazing!
  • Holidays around the World math building challenge: Use any task cards that your students need practice with along with some sort of block or building material. As students complete a task card, they get three more blocks. As they get blocks they try to build something that goes along with the holiday you’re studying! 

Holidays Around the World Books

Who doesn’t love picture books?! They are such great tools for teaching something new and connect the students to new cultures, concepts, and experiences! Here are some of my favorites for teaching Holidays around the World in December:
Walk this World at Christmastime is a sweet book showing different holiday traditions around the world! 
A World of Cookies for Santa is a great book to kick off the unit. It takes you around the world to see some of the different treats children put out for Santa, and learn about the difference in holiday traditions.
‘Twas Nochebuena is a beautiful depiction of Las Posadas, in the style of the Night Before Christmas. The illustrations are beautiful and I love getting a look into the traditions of this holiday! 
The Story of Hanukkah is a great read when teaching Hanukkah. It’s informative, historical, and kid-friendly. I love the recipe for latkes at the back too! That would make a fun extension if time allows!
The Legend of Old Befana is perfect for teaching the Italian Christmas traditions!
Diwali the Magical Diyas is an enlightening and fun book to learn about Diwali!
Lucia Morning in Sweden is such a wonderful book to learn about Lucia Day and Swedish traditions!

Holidays Around the World in ELA

There are so many fun ways to incorporate Holidays around the World into your ELA block! Here are my favorite activities:
  • Have students read or listen to a book about the holiday, discuss it with a classmate, and respond to it.
  • Use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast two of the holidays, and then write about the similarities and differences.
  • Come up with holiday vocabulary for students to play games with, memorize, and use in writing.
  • Use Holidays around the World reading passages.
  • Have students research a certain holiday and present their findings to the class or make a video about the holiday and culture.
  • Teach how-to writing and have students write a how-to writing piece on something that they have learned to do from a culture or holiday tradition.
  • For your younger to middle-aged elementary students, work on labeling or writing about each holiday you discover.

Even More Holidays Around the World Ideas

Here are a few more ideas, activities, and resources for your Holidays Around the World lesson plans!
  • I created a Holidays Around the World video playlist on YouTube just for you! Feel free to save it so that you can use the videos year after year!
  • Crafts are also a great idea for Holidays around the World, but they can tend to get tedious after a while. I would recommend having your students choose a holiday to represent through craft at the end of each week, and give them all sorts of materials to make something. But, the twist is to keep the Holidays around the World crafts open-ended! Students will have seen the holiday traditions and items of each culture through books, videos, and lessons. So, why not let them create what they love the most!?! They can be so creative, and it’s a great way to engage the upper grades. 
  • Students can make Holidays around the World journals to keep track of what they learn and write down what they experience. This is a great keepsake to remember these holidays and traditions, and even introduce some to their families at home!
  • Don’t forget to get Holidays Around the World Morning Meeting Slides too!
What is your favorite culture and holiday to teach during this time? What do you include in your plans every year that I missed? Let me know below! 
And if you are looking for more holiday ideas and resources, check out these posts:
Happy Holidays!! Don’t forget to enjoy this fun, exciting, crazy time with your students!! The countdown to break is on!!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Caroline Tuiolosega says

    Thanks for the awesome collection of ideas, including a video playlist! The plane windows as a display really caught my eye. So creative! Thanks, again, for sharing all of these ideas! There's truly something for everyone. 🙂

    • Allie @ The Gypsy Teacher says

      Thanks for your sweet feedback, Caroline! That's my aim – to give something that everyone can use as inspiration!! Have a great holiday season!

  2. Easy Street Teach says

    I just love this! I have done Christmas around the world but wow you really took it up a notch! I love the idea of completely immersing your classroom in Christmas around the world decor. This is a great idea and I really want to try it.
    Ashley Steele

    • Allie @ The Gypsy Teacher says

      Thank you, Ashley! I'm glad you got some ideas from this post!! Have a merry Christmas!!

  3. Dawn says

    These are such great reminders for teachers. I cant wait to order some of these books. Thank you so much

  4. The Introverted Online Teacher says

    The flags and all the other ideas you mentioned here are wonderful! I've had different flags in my classroom and they are a great visual.

    • Allie @ The Gypsy Teacher says

      I'm glad you found some helpful ideas!! Yes- I love using the flags and helping students learn which belong to which countries!