Explore celebrations across the globe! Capture a celebratory moment of your own by designing a colorful fabric banner!

• 1.

  What is a celebration? Why do we celebrate things? A celebration is a way of observing and honoring a notable event or occasion in a way that is outside one’s usual routine. Birthday parties, holiday dinners, and parades are all examples of celebrations! What celebrations can you name? Can you think of something you celebrated that was unique to your family or friends?

• 2.

  Countries all over the world celebrate important events with special rituals and traditions. Research with your classmates to discover a few holidays from around the globe that you find interesting and unique, such as the Middle Eastern holiday called No Ruz! Discuss the traditions that occur in celebration of those holidays.

• 3.

  Think about an occasion in your life that you would like to celebrate. Perhaps you earned an “A” on your last science test or went skateboarding for the first time without falling down! Decide what you would do to celebrate such an event and create a fabric banner to hang during your celebration! Get inspiration from the holidays around the world you discovered in your research.

• 4.

  On a large piece of 100% cotton fabric, draw colorful symbols, designs, and phrases with Crayola® Bright Fabric Markers! Clearly represent the event you’re celebrating with your illustrations. Place a piece of paper underneath the drawing area to prevent bleed through. Draw your design, making sure you saturated the cloth. Stain Advisement: Fabric markers are permanent on clothing and contain colorants that may stain household surfaces. Wear a smock to protect clothing and cover your work surface. Recap markers as soon as possible and store in a horizontal position. Do not shake markers.

• 5.

  When you are finished, ask an adult to iron your design. Set iron on cotton setting and iron on the reverse side using a back and forth motion for 4 minutes. Or place garment in the dryer for 30 minutes on the hottest setting. This will fix the color to the fabric.

Standards

• LA: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
• LA: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for answers.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.
• VA: Identify specific works of art as belonging to particular cultures, times, and places.

Adaptations

• Invite a local community member who has immigrated from a foreign country to speak with students about traditions and stories of his home country. Prior to the visit, have students compose questions for the visitor. Students post to a class blog after the visit about their learnings.
• In teams of two or small groups, students design original greeting cards for celebrations. Students will compose greetings and/or prose for the cards. Create a classroom mailbox and have students "send" their greeting cards to class members, the teacher, or school administrators.