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Showing posts with label celebration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celebration. Show all posts

Celebrating Kwanzaa

What do you know about Kwanzaa?

Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.

Kwanzaa was first celebrated in 1966 as a way for African Americans to celebrate their African heritage.

Kwanzaa starts on December 26th and continues until January 1st. Each of the 7 days is dedicated to a principle:
 
Day 1: unity
Day 2: self-determination
Day 3: collective work or responsibility
Day 4: cooperative economics
Day 5: purpose
Day 6: creativity
Day 7: faith

On each of the 7 days, those celebrating Kwanzaa light a candle on a special wooden candelabra called a Kinara. (Image is a link to Amazon.)

Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.
Here are some books to help your students learn more about the celebration of Kwanzaa: (Each image is a link to Amazon for more information.)

Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.     Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.     

Since Kwanzaa is a cultural celebration, it's important to include music as part of the celebration! Here are some examples of music that celebrate the culture of Kwanzaa! 

Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.     Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.      

Families celebrating Kwanzaa decorate their homes with homemade arts and crafts, and focus on the three colors of Kwanzaa: red, green, and black.

Food is also an important component of any cultural celebration! Typically a feast happens on the sixth evening of Kwanzaa. Typical foods served might include collard greens, corn, sweet potato pie, fried okra, catfish, jerk chicken, yams, and bananas.
Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.
Another tradition that comes with Kwanzaa is the passing of the unity cup. Celebrants each take a sip from the cup and wish for unity and togetherness.

Although the holiday was created for African Americans to celebrate their African culture, one does not have to be African American to celebrate the concepts of unity and togetherness!

 
Here's a fun digital resource that includes Kwanzaa and several other December holidays!
 
 
Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.

or try this collection of informational reads along with a 


Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.



 

Celebrate Kwanzaa: This blog post shares information, traditions, and resources to learn about how Kwanzaa is celebrated.


Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing

As a blogger, I know the power of the audience. It's you readers out there that make me want to blog, and make me want to make quality blog posts! Don't our children need this same sense of audience to motivate their writing? I think so!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!

Here are some ideas for celebrating the children's writing:

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
1. Share in Class! Have one child read his/ her story to the class. The class is expected to listen and ask questions that "prove they were listening." This works well when the child is "mid-story" in order to get ideas on where to go from this point.

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
2. Small Group Shares! Have children work in groups of 2 or three to share their stories as above.

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
3. Share Your Best Sentence!  I like this one because there's usually enough time for each child to share one sentence. If the children know it's coming, that helps motivate the children to work on the quality of their sentences.

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
4.  Share With Someone Else in the Building! There are lots of adults in an elementary school who would be thrilled to "play along" with this one! It's a great motivator to promise a child that he can read his story to the custodian, or the secretary, or the cafeteria workers. It's a win-win!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
5. Share With Another Class! Plan to get together with another class in your own grade, or another grade to pair the children up for a big share! There are advantages to each age group: older, younger, or peers!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
6. Skype! - Do you have a class with whom you Skype?  What a great opportunity for children to share their writing! 

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
7. Write Letters! See THIS BLOG POST for the benefits of letter writing and resource to make it easy!
Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
8. Bulletin Boards!  Post the children's writing on the wall for others to see!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
9. Class Books and Newspapers! These will be read by classmates (and parents) over and over!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
10. Publish! It's amazing how special it makes a story when it's typed up and a fancy cover is put on it. I allow students to take out each others' published books for Independent Reading time. It gets really interesting when we're talking about Author's purpose... the author is sitting right there in the classroom!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
11. Have an "Author's Tea"! Invite parents, grandparents, and administrators, and give the children an opportunity to read one of their stories to the group. This can be as simple or as elaborate as you make it. It's a great opportunity for a party, and a great opportunity to motivate your young writers with a live audience!

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!
12. Have a Class Blog!  I have to admit, I've never done this, but I'm planning to start a class blog very soon!  Imagine the thrill to see your own written work displayed on the internet! Wait... I know what that's like, and that's why I can't wait to give my students the opportunity to do the same!  

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!

If you have a blog for your class, or know of one, I'd love some input! I have loads of questions and concerns, so I'm looking for examples and mentors in the Class Blog department!

An Easter Warning and an Easter Tradition

Wow, it's almost Easter already! 

An Easter Warning and an Easter Tradition - here are a couple of fun Easter stories - one you won't want to do, and one you might!


Nowadays I don't do as much as we did when we were kids, but we still do eggs, Easter dinner with family, and the Easter Bunny still gives my daughter a basket. Yes, she's an adult and probably thinks it's dorky, but I love that the Easter Bunny still visits!

I have an Easter story from my past I'd like to share that comes with a warning: Count your eggs before they are hidden!

When we were kids, the Easter Bunny always hid eggs for us to find. This particular spring, my sister and I managed to find most of the eggs, leaving our little brother a few. After much hunting, we were sure we'd found them all, so we went about our Easter business: getting decked out in Easter clothes, church, comparing Easter baskets, dinner with the family, lots of Easter candy, and general family enjoyment!

We'd long forgotten that spring morning the following November when the first snow came. We dug out last year's snow gear, and got ready for school. When we were leaving, my sister had trouble getting her boots on. She realized there was something in the boot. Imagine our horror when she pulled out a very old Easter egg. No, not the plastic ones, but a colored, hard-boiled egg!

Needless to say, we didn't open it, but we learned our lesson:  Always count the eggs!

I also want to share my family's Easter tradition. We call it the Polish tradition since it came from my Dad, but we really have no idea where it came from. It all comes from the principle that when two eggs are clicked together, only one will crack! (I've never seen it fail, and I've been doing this for over 50 years!)

At the Easter dinner table, everyone chooses a hard-boiled egg. Pairs click their eggs together, and the one who holds the uncracked egg moves on in the competition. Finally, a winner will emerge!

I am a lover of tradition. I don't think Easter would be Easter without the traditional egg-cracking contest! Feel free to try this at your Easter dinner!

And remember to count your eggs!


An Easter Warning and an Easter Tradition - here are a couple of fun Easter stories - one you won't want to do, and one you might!

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