Today we are going to talk about a fun aspect of Teaching From Home. We will be discussing Holidays and Special Occasions that can be brought into teaching your child or children. I call this enhancing education and making it more real for children.
Now most of the world knows that April or Spring is heavy with holidays, especially religious holidays. So I will discuss the religious events first then move into the silly fun ones that you can throw into your lessons each week.
Here is my disclaimer, I am not encouraging anyone to teach something they don’t feel comfortable with or have a strong opinion in the negative, but I will discuss how to properly teach about religious holidays celebrated around the world while encouraging open mindedness.
So let’s start with the why of pulling in holidays and events into our lessons. If you think back to when you were a child, I could guarantee that you remember learning about holidays in elementary school. You sang songs, read books and did artwork that had to deal with holidays and special events. AND the reason for this is, 1. someone has to teach your child about them and 2. It makes learning fun. I am all for making learning fun because the truth is, when you are having fun your child will remember.
So let’s talk about the big holidays which are usually based around a religious holiday. Here is my opinion and encourage you to take the same: Your child cannot understand a religious holiday if they don’t learn everything about the holiday, learning about the good, bad and inaccurate information out there. For example,
April is seeing Passover, a Jewish holiday, Good Friday and Easter, both Christian holidays. If you are not either of these religions should you acknowledge these holidays.? My answer to you is YES… The more educated your child is about other people’s beliefs, the more understanding and accepting they will be of others. They will also learn to respect other’s cultures and through this demand respect for their own beliefs and cultures as they mature. There is nothing worse than having an ignorant person criticizing someone’s religion.
So how do you teach about a holiday? (I will use April holidays for examples)
Depending on the age, very young children should be introduced to the name of the holiday and three facts about it. You can prepare ahead by looking for photos of Passover, Jewish people in their cultural dress, and put together food found at a table during Passover.
For older children (2-6 grade) you can have them do the investigation… let them read books, look on the internet and come back and give you a report on what they have learned, or model the holiday for your family to experience.
For even older children (8th – 12th grade) you can have them write a paper on the difference between this holiday and one of their own. Remember, make it a short paper. Or have them reach out to the clergy of the religion /holiday being celebrated and do an interview. The idea is to introduce your child to a new holiday or one that is different from their own.
IF you think about Easter, it is often treated different in a regular classroom. The Easter bunny is introduced and children get very interested in books and doing art projects for this holiday. You can choose to do this, or you can choose to discuss both the fictional Easter and the true Easter that is based on religion. And if you are really good, you can show how one is connected to the other…because they almost always are.
The idea is not to ignore a holiday just because it is not your own religion. The more introductions to different religions your child is exposed to the better they are prepared for the real world. You might be surprised by all the great questions they have and the discussions you end up having.
Now most of you don’t know that many teachers use a calendar to pull fun lessons into their classrooms. I’m going to use the month of April to demonstrate…
In the month of April we have:
Humor Month – Have your children try to make their own jokes, look up jokes, have a stand up comedy show
Guitar Month – Why not learn how the guitar is built and make one at home, if you have one at home, learn a song, learn about the history of the instrument
National Kite Month – Learn the history of the Kite (you should always start with the history of a subject matter) Then using math, build several different kinds of kites and take them out for a flight. Talk about weather and discuss the importance of wind and how the kite has played a role in American history (Electricity and Airplane)
Poetry Month ( one of my favorite) – Read poems, write them, make a poetry book, send a poem to someone in a retirement home or to a relative.
Library Week – Because we can’t go to a library we can virtually. Take your child to the New York City Library, or make a library in your living room and talk about the importance of taking care of books etc.
Read a Road Map Week – Yes… there are still maps around. If you have to print them off on your printer to teach your child how to read them. When GPS doesn’t work they need to understand a road map… or map in general. This is a huge social studies component in elementary school. Have your child make a road map to their best friend’s house or to a store.
Garden Week – Such a great time to go outside and learn about the garden. What are seeds, how to plant them, water them, watch them grow. You can even get plants from local hardware stores since they are still open. Go outside and try to name all the flowers and trees in your garden. There are apps on phones that can help you.
National Farm Animal Day – Introduce your children to farm animals in books, pictures, movies and if you live near a farm… go for a walk and learn about them. Imagine all the great lessons you can do with animal names, their purpose, how much they weigh etc.
Children’s Book Day – Have everyone pick out their favorite book, draw your favorite character from the book, how would you change the book if you were the author, have everyone read their book aloud.
Deep Dish Pizza Day – You guessed it… using math to bake your favorite pizza… make sure you use measuring tools for everything you put on the pizza. Have fun, throw some flour, talk about different temperature settings, and keeping your kitchen clean!
Find a Rainbow Day – A great art lesson… teach the colors of the rainbow (they have an order), draw them, read stories about them, look them up on the computer and see what place has the most and why? Learn about the light rays and particles of the rainbow and how they are connected to sunsets…
So as you can see… there are lots of cool holidays and events that you can pull into your lessons each and every day if you really want to spice up learning for your child.
Remember these lessons should be organic and should be done as a fun activity and should not be treated as a “must” lesson like for school. This is one of those lessons you begin with, “Hey, today we are going to do something really cool when we get our studies all done… I can’t wait for you to finish so we can do something cool together.”
Learning should be fun and the best way to help your child learn is to help them experience by doing hands on activities. I hope this gave you some insight on how to bring holidays and special occasions into your daily lessons. If you need more ideas look up calendar events by months.
I hope your teaching is going well, that your schedule is set, the routine is going well and you are feeling more comfortable.
Next week we will be discussing Discipline while teaching… the Do’s and Don’ts…
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