Holidays around the world

Sorry for the long wait, live has been busy. For the month of December we didn't focus on on a  single country of study, we instead learned about holidays around the world. The kids loved seeing how people celebrate Christmas around the world, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah. Below are a few pictures of the activities we did. I didn't get pictures of everything. We concluded our study with our holiday party were I asked the parents to bring different foods that go with the different holidays; they really enjoyed it.

 

Saint Lucia Crowns

Poinsettias

Stars for Russia

My display for the holidays. 

Lanterns for Ramadan

Holiday party

Door/wall display ( it didn't have Ramadan.)

 

 

 

Around the World: India- Diwali lamps

To finish my classes trip to India we celebrated Diwali.  This included making our own diwali lamps.

We used Crayola air dried clay and then painted them.  Next year I will use the terra cotta colred kind, it would look more like the lamps.

Around the World: India

Our next stop on our journey around the world is India.  India was big hit with my class last year and this year was the same, they loved it! They loved learning about Diwali, peacocks, hendi tattoos, and so on.  To start off here was my display for India:

I had two saris, a stuffed peacock, a doll dressed in a sari, peacock feathers, a neat book/kit on Henna tattoos, a little Genesh statue, a diwali lamp, and an elephant figurine.

One of the things the kids liked the best were the rangoli designs.  The students loved seeing the beautiful rangoli designs I found on the internet and we then went outside to do our own.  We used sidewalk chalk instead of rice or sand and the kids had fun.  Here are some pictures of them:

 

I will update with more pics later.  Next up- Holidays around the world!

Around the World: Chile Rain Sticks

 

Hello all. We are continue with our study of South America with a stop in Chile. This week we made rain sticks out of paper towel rolls, foil, construction paper, and beans. The kids really liked making the rain sticks and thought it was cool that they are made out of dried out cactus. Here are some pictures.

 

Around the world: South America

My next stop on my around the world tour is South America, looking at Brazil and Chile.  Both are new this year and I am really excited for both.  We just started and the kids are really liking it.  Here is my display for Chile and Brazil:

It contains a guiro rasp, Easter Island statue head, hat, rain stick, llama, parrot, carved bowl, both flags, and a cute brazilian jungle play set I found on amazon.
We started with the Amazon rain forest.  We learned about the 4 layers to the forest and the animals found there.  For an art project the kids made their own forest pictures.  The used tussue paper for the tree leaves, yarn for vines, and I found these cute frog and monkey shapes at Hobby Lobby.  (The frog is too big but looked cute.)  The kids really liked making them and did a great job.

More to come on including Easter Island statues and rain sticks.

Around the World class decorations, study

I have done an around the world study of countries with my class for the last two years.  I really enjoy it and the kids love learning about the other countries.  I found a lot of lesson ideas online but I also found this great book http://www.amazon.com/Children-Around-World-Countries-Languages/dp/1933052376/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1347768211&sr=8-10&keywords=field+trip+around+the+world that gave me great ideas and a jumping off point.  I also used these books for ideas: http://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Coloring-Dover-History/dp/0486439836/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1347768170&sr=8-8&keywords=around+the+world and http://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Art-Activities-Continents/dp/1885593457/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1347768170&sr=8-15&keywords=around+the+world .

This year I decided to have a decoration theme to my room. I have seen so many teachers do and I never did, but this year I decided to do it. I have had a bulletin board of kids around the world but this year I added to it and made it bigger:

I gotta say finding around the world stuff was difficult; the places I looked online and in the stores nearest me had pretty much nothing.  I have seem tons of frogs, lizards, and weird monsters but not around the world (or fairy tales, my other favorite but that is another post :)) I found the larger kids on Amazon and the smaller kids were an old set my mother had.  The little world was found at Knowledge Bound. 

For my students hanger name cards I decided to try and find something world themed but had no luck. So I took plain white index cards and put some passport type stamps on them that I found online. ( I do not remember the site at the moment but I will try and find it.) I put two on each card and then wrote the child's name on them.

When I do my around the world study with my kids I like to have a little display for the country we are studying.  I am slowly building collections for each one and right now some are better than others.  We are on Germany at the moment (new this year) and it is small but I hope to add to it.  It is on one of my shelves next to one of my maps, here is an example:

It has a nutcracker, flags, a cuckoo clock, hat, and lederhosen for the country.  I will update for each country. 

For our back to school night each teacher always has some sort of display outside their rooms with the students names.  I tried to find something around the world that I didn't already have up but no luck.  So I made a poster of a world with poster board, blue paper and continents I printed out that said Welcome Worldwide Learners! on it and had the children's names on little passports I copied from my Children Around the world book above on different colors of paper. 



I also had two welcome banners outside of my room that had flags of the world all over them; one said welcome in English and the other said welcome in different languages, I found it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004X0QI1S/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00 . I think they are outside banners bu they looked fine and fold up nicely for next year.