Kindergarten Crew // Last Week Before Winter Break Learning
In my 10th year of teaching, I find myself reflecting on the fact that this time of year is such a benchmark for both teachers and students. While this week before break was cut a day short (or Winter Break began early) due to the historic Winter Storm Elliot coming barreling into Michigan, at Detroit Achievement Academy, we found a way to celebrate the end of teaching in 2022.
One of my favorite things about teaching at this time of year is getting a chance to open up my students to how this magical time of year is for people all over the world. Due to the wildness of the coronavirus pandemic and distance teaching/learning, I hadn’t really gotten a chance to do one of my favorite mini-units to teach “Holidays Around the World” in a few years. This year I was determined to dedicate some of our crew time and our ELA Module time to learning about different cultures and different holidays.
In Kindergarten Crew A, we started with a basis in what we already know about this time of year. It is crucial to make sure that no matter what you’re learning about, to find out what students are already knowledgeable about! Some of the things that ended up on our anchor chart: “celebrating, making food, buying things, presents, cookies, snow angels, Santa Claus, Jesus’s birthday.” Now that I knew what my 20 scholars know, I was ready to start to share about other holidays and other holiday traditions. We were ready to “travel” the world!
We began on Monday learning about Kwanzaa, which meant we didn’t have to travel very far because it is celebrated in the United States! We enjoyed learning about the importance of the Pan-African Flag’s colors and the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. Then we made our own Kinaras to take home and share with our families.
On Tuesday, we learned about Christmas in Australia! This was really an important connection to make because we are currently learning weather in ELA module. It was so informative for them to understand that the weather and season would be completely opposite of what we experience in Michigan. This also impacts how they celebrate because while we may have a hot pie coming out of the oven for dessert, Australians will celebrate with Pavlova, a cooler cake dessert topped with fresh fruit!
On Wednesday, we learned about how our neighbors to the south in Mexico celebrate the holidays with Las Posadas (9 days which lead up until Christmas Eve or Nochebuena). Many of these traditions celebrated by our Latinx neighbors also can be found in the United States with Latinx folks enjoying a party with tamales, Buñuelo and a pinata for the kids! On this day we created poinsettias or cuetlaxochitl to take home. (The original Nahuatl name for the plant we call “poinsettia” is cuetlaxochitl (kwet-la-sho-she), cultivated by the Aztecs long before the European colonization of the Americas.)
On Thursday, which would be the last day before break, we learned about French Christmas traditions. While I am rusty, I took French all throughout high school and college so sharing this and speaking a little French to my students is always a highlight. Even a simple “Bonjour mes poupées" makes their eyes go wide. We got to see the beautiful lights displayed in Paris during Christmastime (a real feat to make “The City of Lights'' even more magical), listened to Christmas carols in French, and learned about the Bûche De Noël or Yule Log cake. Our crafts for today were making our own yule log and one of my favorite things to make each year, a candy cane ornament from beads and a pipe cleaner.
While I didn’t get to wear my ugly holiday sweater on the day before break this year, I am so happy that my crew and I got to learn about all these different traditions! They also got the taste of a couple foreign languages as well, which I hope plants a seed for them to explore the world even more in the future!