Concept Week #7: Yule & Christmas

This is going to be a short post because there is honestly not much to say.

This Concept Week was pretty easy.  The point of it was to do some fun Yule/Christmas/winter activities and to learn how other countries celebrate their December (sometimes January) holiday.  It was neat to learn about other versions of Christmas (in the Netherlands it's called Sinterklaas after Santa), what they believe in those countries and how they celebrate.  For instance, in some countries Jesus or the Wise Men leave the presents, in others elves or Santa do.  Then other countries have their own mythical person - like Russia where Grandfather Frost & the Snow Maiden leave the gifts and sometimes have to fight Baba Yaga as she tries to steal them!  As far as bad kids go they don't all get coal - in some countries (like Germany) they get sticks!  Some countries the holiday will last for one day, in others it will last for weeks.  Some countries the holiday is religious, others secular, others a combination.

After we read all about these countries we compared them to how we celebrate.  We talked about how every culture has their own traditions and beliefs and how different families within the same culture will even believe or practice different things.

For our book we read The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear by Stan & Jan Berenstain (of course it was a Berenstain Bears book!) and for our activity we wrote our letters to Santa.

In the end we picked up some new traditions that my kids want to try out this year.  One they really want to do is a Russian tradition where they make 12 dishes for Christmas Eve dinner to represent the 12 Apostles.  I told them that we will have to figure out something similar for us to do.

If you are interested in the country worksheets they came from education.com (of course!).  Just look up First Grade Christmas worksheets and you'll find them no problem.  Hopefully it will give you some idea to add to your own tradition.  After Yule I'll post about all the new traditions we tried out this year and how they worked out.