‘Tis the season to shine! What word captures how you feel about the holidays?

• 1.

  The holidays are a time of tradition, family and friends. What types of holidays do students in your class celebrate?

• 2.

  Compare and contrast the class’s holiday traditions. How are the celebrations the same? How do they differ? Think about what words remind you of the holidays. Peace? Joy? Love? Choose a word that captures the feelings of the holidays for you.

• 3.

  Glue a piece of aluminum foil onto a piece of recycled cardboard. Allow the glue to air dry. Draw the holiday word in block lettering on a piece of cardboard. Use scissors to cut out the word to create an ornament.

• 4.

  Decorate the foil on the ornament using Crystal Effects Window Markers. The sparkle of the foil combined with the crystal-like marker effect makes a unique holiday shine. Tie on a ribbon to hang your ornament.

Standards

• LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
• MATH: Generate measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch.
• 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.
• SS: Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools to generate, manipulate, and interpret information.
• SS: Give examples of and explain group and institutional influences such as religious beliefs, laws, and peer pressure, on people, events, and elements of culture.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.
• VA: Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.
• VA: Identify specific works of art as belonging to particular cultures, times, and places.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays by Judith Gross; Children Just Like Me: Celebrations! By Anabel Kindersley; Kids Around the World Celebrate!: The Best Feasts and Festivals from Many Lands by Lynda Jones
• Students work independently or in teams of two to compose a holiday haiku that represents the celebration that they have chosen. Encourage students to use holiday-inspired words to help create a unique expression of the season.
• Students use Crayola Crystal Effects Window Markers to decorate the windows of classrooms for the holidays.
• Students interview a classmate that celebrates a different holiday than they do. Prior to the interview, students collaborate to compose questions for the talk. After the interview takes place, students write a few sentences to summarize the experience. Students provide an original illustration to assist with understanding the holiday.