The Grinch and Holiday Traditions around the World

We’ve had a very exciting few weeks! The Grinch sent us packages every other day from a different location around the world. First, we got a letter from the Grinch, who was still in Whoville, explaining how he now loved Christmas and wanted to learn more about Christmas traditions, as well as other holiday traditions around the world.

 

His first stop? The North Pole! The Grinch sent us the book Santa’s Stuck by Rhonda Gowler Greene and Christmas Time by Gail Gibbons. The first day, we read Santa’s Stuck and completed this craft.

The second day, we read Christmas Time and began filling out a chart to track each holiday’s symbols, traditions, and country of origin, which we would complete for every holiday he visited. The students also completed a worksheet where they drew and labeled two Christmas traditions they learned about. Our next Grinchy package came from Mexico, where the Grinch taught us about Las Posadas.

We got a real poinsettia, as well as a piñata! You can imagine the kids’ excitement! The first day, we learned that hitting a piñata is a tradition that children in Mexico take part in each night of Las Posadas. So, the kids all took turns whacking the piñata (that looked like a burro, they learned). The second day, we read The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie DePaola and they each made paper poinsettias of their own. From Mexico, the Grinch traveled to Africa to learn about Kwanzaa. 

He sent us a postcard from Ethiopia, along with simply Kwanzaa book and directions for making a handprint kinara. The students again completed a worksheet where they drew and labeled two Kwanzaa traditions they learned about. Then we made handprint kinaras, along with a poem we found in The Mailbox Magazine.

Next, the Grinch was off to Israel! In this mystery package, the kids found it hilarious when they opened it and it was filled with toilet paper tubes! 

We read an informational book about Hanukkah, and then worked together to create three class menorahs.

Our sixth Grinchy package came from Sweden.It happened to arrive on December 13^th – St. Lucia Day! He sent us materials to make candle-wreath crowns, just like the ones St. Lucia wore.

The Grinch’s final package came from India. In it was a book about Diwali. We used the information we learned to complete the worksheet where they drew and labeled two Diwali traditions. The Grinch encouraged us to take a look at our now-completed chart and compare the traditions of all the holidays we learned about. Next week, we will be using Venn diagrams to do this. After winter vacation, the studnets will be sharing some of their own family traditions with the class in a short presentation. We’ll keep you posted! Happy Holidays!

Holidays Around the World

The students started off three weeks ago not even knowing what a tradition was, and now they are brainstorming all the traditions of each holiday we have studied.  Because the students picked up on all the highlights of each holiday celebrated so quickly, we decided to use the holidays to kick off our webbing for writing unit.  Each day we web the most important traditions of each holiday.  The students are expected to come up with four ideas, write their ideas and then illustrate a detailed drawing to go with their words.  So far, they are doing great!  Their ideas great, their handwriting looks wonderful and they are excited to be creating a book to share with their family and friends! 

If you would like to try this activity in your class, hit the pictures below!

 

     

What's Next? Grinchy Traditions!

Our next IB Unit is Where We Are in Place and Time and we are focusing on traditions. To kick off our unit, we will be spending the week after Thanksgiving with The Grinch! By Friday, we will have learned all about how the Grinch’s character changes from the beginning to the end of the story and how the Whos celebrate Christmas in Whoville. Then, the fun will really begin!

Our classes will receive letters from the Grinch explaining that he enjoyed learning about Christmas traditions in Whoville so much that he plans to travel the world to learn about holiday traditions in other countries. Each day, we will receive a package from the Grinch telling his location, the holiday that country celebrates, and including a book for us to read and an activity for us to do to learn about that holiday’s traditions. (Download the Grinched font we used to prepare the letters here.)

Each day, we will add to a running chart that we can use to compare and contrast the holidays and their traditions.

The Grinch will travel to:

The North Pole – Christmas

Africa – Kwanzaa (we realize that Kwanzaa began in America but it was celebrated by people of African descent)

Israel – Hanukkah

Mexico – Las Posadas

Sweden – St. Lucia Day

India – Diwali

Some days, the students will be asked to draw and label two traditions for each holiday or to compare holiday traditions. Download a free copy of the worksheets we created here. Other days, they will complete a craft or activity (i.e. make a poinsettia, take turns swinging at a piñata, work cooperatively to create a toilet paper tube menorah, etc.).

We will post pictures as we move through the unit. Once we have learned about holiday traditions around the world, the students will conduct a family interview to learn more about a tradition their family engages in, and will present this tradition, along with an artifact/song/dance, to the class.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mapping Our Community

Hi All,
We are moving along in our "How We Organize Ourselves" unit and we had a GREAT week.  After learning about all the community helpers, the students came up with all the different places that are important in the community.  The kids then chose the building they would like to make.  They spent lots of time adding details and making their pictures look good so that we could tell what they were on our map.

Then, as a class, we sat down and discussed where each building should go on the map.  The kids debated which building were most important, and where they should be placed.  For instance, at first we had the community pool in the middle of the map.  Soon, the kids decided that the post office and police station were more important and should be in the middle.  They also chose to separate the two fire stations so that they could help people on different sides of the community.  Later, we created roads, railroad tracks, trees and a lake.  The kids chose different symbols to represent these different features on the map.

At this point, one little girl asked "What are maps even used for?"  This was just so exciting!  We added that question to the Wonder Wall, and began searching for the answer.

Finally, we introduced the compass rose and began asking the students to identify where things were.  The kids did a great job and they were so engaged because it was something they had created!

Check out these pictures of the process!

Asking Questions

This past week, we had two community helper visits - one from a local police officer and another from a firefighter. Before each visit, the students came up with a ton of questions to learn more about them. We introduced the “Wonder Wall” during these lessons by writing the students’ questions on sticky notes and adding them to the speech bubbles above their heads.

 This was the first time we had generated questions as a class, and were super impressed with the kids’ inquiries! During inquiry, students are encouraged to generate questions to drive their own learning, so these activities supported our IB unit perfectly! We plan to do several more asking questions lessons before transitioning to having the students add questions about anything they wonder about, at any time, to the “Wonder Wall.”

Unit #2 Begins...

We are beginning our next unit of study! One down… 5 more to go!  Our unit, “How We Organize Ourselves” focuses on community helpers.  We will be discussing their roles, their location in the community, and how cooperation amongst people in a community makes a safe and comfortable place to live.  We will even check out community helpers around the world.  We will investigate the similarities and differences of the different countries’ community helpers with ours here in the United States.

This first week we are just focusing on community helpers, in general.  We are reading nonfiction books that highlight different jobs in our community.  We have created a community helper flipchart with slides for brainstorming, graphing, and identifying community helpers and their roles, to help spice up our lessons! And best of all, we created community helper bingo cards so our students can learn and have fun at the same time!  You can check out the flipchart and the bingo cards on TPT, by clicking the pictures below!

We will continue adding all the different fun, inquiry based, activities in this unit, as we go.  Check back in for more ideas! 

       

Families around the World *Freebie*

The last week of our “Who We Are” unit is devoted to helping students develop an understanding of the existence of different cultures throughout the world. We will be doing this by comparing food, families, houses, and schools in the US to food, families, houses, and schools in other countries. 

Over four days, we will be watching trailers of the “Families of the World” series on YouTube to make our comparisons. Each day, we will locate a new country on a world map. Then, the students will make and draw predictions about what they think food, families, houses, or schools will look like in that country. Following their predictions, we will watch and discuss the “Families of the World” trailers and see how their initial predications were similar to, or different from, what they saw. 

Day 1: Families of the Philippines - Homes

Day 2: Families of Kenya – Family

Day 3: Families of China – Food

Day 4: Families of Costa Rica – School

The students will record their predictions and what they learned in a booklet, which you can download for free from our TPT store by clicking on the sample page below!

Multi-Cultural Writing Activity *Freebie*

(The book has red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple included.)

This book is a great beginning of the year writing activity.  Each day in Writer’s Workshop we complete a mini lesson on brainstorming.  As a class, we think of all the different items that are the color of the page we are working on.  Ex. Red: apples, fire truck, barn, etc.  The students then go back to their seats and pick one item to “write” about.  Because it is the beginning of Kindergarten, we are mostly looking for detailed pictures, but words are welcome!  We then walk around and scribe for the students. We ask them to come up with the beginning letter of the item they are drawing to assess their letter sounds recognition. 

At the end of the color book, we read the story “The Color of Us” by Karen Katz.  We discuss how we may all look different on the outside, but we all are good people on the inside.  We give the kids multi cultural crayons so that they can pick out their own skin color.  This is fun, because there are so many shades that the students who think they are “white” or “black” see that there are many shades within those colors.  They then draw a detailed picture of themselves.  This lesson is really a great way for students to see that we all come from different backgrounds but that we all can get along and work together.  

Press here to download this free document from our TPT page!

Delving Deep Into Our Essential Agreement

Once the students created our Essential Agreement, we began to delve deeper into what each rule meant.  We read a book to accompany each of the rules, brainstormed how to follow the rules and then had the students come up with poses for pictures to create a podcast to put on our website for their parents to see.  Below is each rule in our Essential Agreement and the pictures the students came up with. 

We agree to: 

1. Respect others.

  helping a friend                     playing nicely

2. Listen to the teacher.

Listening on the carpet

3. Keep our hands and feet to ourselves.

turn pages                                       shake hands

4. Walk!

walk in the classroom

5. Follow directions.

put things away

School Rules and Essential Agreements

This week, we focused on practicing routines and setting expectations for behavior throughout the school. We did two different activities to get the students thinking about rules.

Conveyor Belt – The students wrote or drew ideas for rules to follow in the hallway, lunchroom, gym, and library. A piece of chart paper with the name of the setting was in the middle of every table, and, every few minutes, the students rotated to a new table to think about a new setting. At the end of the activity, we discussed all of the different rules they came up with for each location.

Bottoms-Up – Each table had a large piece of chart paper divided into sections. First, students brainstormed and wrote or drew ideas for our class rules in their individual section. Next, the students discussed their ideas and chose the one they thought was the most important. Finally, they wrote or drew (or I scribed) this idea in the middle section of the paper. We used these ideas to create our Essential Agreement!

Essential Agreement  –  Together, we combined, condensed, and reworded the students’ ideas to create our Essential Agreement.  All the students “signed” the Essential Agreement to show that they agree to abide by our rules. 

Now, the behavior clip chart will be really effective because students have clear expectations for their behavior and understand that, if these expectations are not met, they will receive a consequence. The kids started earning links on their compliment chain for principled behavior, too!

Pick up a FREE copy of this behavior chart here. 

How do you establish your class rules at the beginning of the school year?

Classroom Favorites

Because Megan and I plan everything together, I decided I would highlight just a couple of things in my classroom that she didn't make mention of.  

  

     

Table Caddies - I have these caddies at each of my tables so that my students can begin learning to SHARE.  I bought them in the dollar spot at target and then glued on polka dot ribbon and a number.  I have the students bring in an emptied and cleaned frosting container so I can have more divisions to help the students stay organized.

Manipulatives - I thought all you organization buffs would enjoy my manipulative shelf.  I have taken pictures of the manipulatives that are in each bin so that the students know exactly where to find what they need, and more importantly, they know exactly where to put them away.  

Chicka Chicka Tree -  My Chicka Chicka tree is one of my favorite spots in my classroom.  Within the first week of school I pull a picture of a child out of a hat and have a different child tell me who is in the picture.  They then have to tell me the letter that is at the beginning of that child's name.  I then hang the picture with the child's first letter of their name climbing up the tree.  This activity is such a fun way for the students to get to know one another.

Brain Beads - We found this idea on Pinterest.  I laminated circles and placed hooks at the top of the circles.  I then numbered the circles so that each child has their own.  The students will each get their own bracelet to add charms (pony beads) to throughout the year, and they will be on display for all to see.  Some examples of charm worthy achievements are: letter sounds, letter names, counting to 100, tying shoes, etc.  

Wall of Work - I really hate stapling up all my students work, especially behind those computers!  So, I laminated circles and hot glued a clothes pin to each.  Now, I just have to clip their work up!  Way easier.  

School's in! Classroom tour & two freebies!

Yesterday was our first full day with our kindergarteners! We began to introduce words like “Principled” and “Respect” and made our first Essential Agreement for recess rules. Here is a slideshow of pictures from my classroom. Let me know if you want more information about anything you see!

A few things you will notice:

Behavior Board: To the right of my Promethean board lives all of our behavior management tools.

            -Compliment Chain: Students will set goals and earn links on the Compliment Chain for principled behavior. Once they reach their goal, they will receive a reward that they have also decided.

-Essential Agreement: We will come up with our Essential Agreement (class rules) together by the end of next week. Creating it together will give the students a sense of ownership over the rules and hold them accountable for following them.

-Voice Scale: Also, adapted from Pinterest, the voice scale shows students the volume they should be using at different times.

-Table Points: Each table, represented by a red, yellow, green, or blue clothespin, can earn points for working quietly, cleaning up quickly, etc. Once they earn ten points, we get to have a lunch bunch together!

-Behavior Continuum: All students begin the day at “Principled.” They have an opportunity to move up to “Awesome Attitude” or “IB All-Star” for positive behavior. They can earn reward tickets for reaching blue or purple. If a student demonstrates negative behavior, they will move down to “Reflecting” or “Teacher’s Choice.” However, students always have an opportunity to move back to “Principled” upon improving their behavior. You can grab a FREE copy of the behavior continuum and reward tickets here. I fill out a behavior record sheet if students end their day on a color other than green so I have data to support future instructional decisions. Here’s that freebie!

IB Bulletin Board: At the top, you will see a timeline of the six transdisciplinary themes we will be teaching this year.  We will take pictures and display them under the name of each theme throughout each six week unit. On the left and right sides of the board are the IB attitudes. As we teach each attitude, we will take pictures of the students modeling them and post them as a reminder. In the middle is all the information about our unit – the theme, descriptor, central idea, and key concepts. The bottom will be our Wonder Wall. I will be putting the students’ faces on the black circles. Whenever they wonder about something, they will write it down in their speech bubble.

Dismissal Organization: I found this idea on Pinterest! The students’ names are on clothespins can be moved to show how they are getting home each day! It worked great on Friday, since I dismiss the kids as I stand right in front of it, to be sure they are all being sent home the right way! I used to just use a list, but the clothespins make it easy to move children around since how they are getting home tends to change on a day-to-day basis.

I hope you enjoyed the tour and that you find the freebies useful! Happy Saturday!

-Megan

Hello!

Hi All,

We are two kindergarten teachers beginning a new educational journey together in an IB candidate school, and we thought there was no better way to document it than beginning a blog.   Therefore, Kinder Culture was created!  This year we will begin teaching the Common Core Kindergarten standards while integrating the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program into our instruction.

If you don’t know much about IB, visit http://www.ibo.org/.  This program emphasizes international mindedness and citizenship.  It gives students the opportunity to explore not only their own cultures, but also other cultures of kids all over the world.

We plan on documenting what it takes to integrate internationalism into a kindergarten classroom.  We will post different lessons, bulletin boards, and fun activities we come up with that will help our students become global citizens.

We hope you enjoy following our journey!  We know we will enjoy sharing it with you.

-Chelsea & Megan