Does Your School Allow Holiday Activities?
Does your school allow holiday activities? This is a hot button issue for many teachers. On the one hand, you don’t want to have any students feel excluded if they don’t celebrate a particular holiday. On the other hand, you don’t want to suck all the fun out of childhood when so many children do celebrate holidays and are super excited at this time of year!
What Influences Holiday Practices?
Your school administrators probably approach this issue differently based on district policy, the mores of the region you live in, the makeup of the school population, and let’s face it…the administrators’ own biases. We had a principal who HATED Halloween (yet he took every opportunity on “dress up days” to wear a football jersey, channeling the quarterback he once was). If you work in a Christian or Catholic school, you will probably be given the green light to celebrate Christmas in a big way. Bring on the festive bulletin boards, creative crafts and yummy cookies. Yeah, no…probably not cookies (allergies and food sensitivities and all). Save them for the faculty lounge! But even Christian schools may have restrictions, deemphasizing Santa and secular themes in favor of the Nativity story or Advent.
In a public school, you may be allowed to do Christmas activities that are not religious, such as counting the gifts in Santa’s sleigh or help the elves build CVC words or design a reindeer flying device in STEM lab. Maybe reading comprehension activities would be okay?
No Santa Allowed?
If Santa is too close to the mark, you may have to steer your lessons toward generic holiday themes such as disguising a gingerbread man or building a gingerbread house (one fifth grade teacher swore it was a geometry lesson). If even those are too Christmassy, you may have to pivot to winter themes such as snowflake multiplication or snowman rhyming words or match the patterned mittens.
Read this post for more gingerbread ideas:
Gingerbread Men in the Library
Here are some gingerbread activities to consider
Multicultural Inclusion
Kids are surrounded by Christmas images, movies, commercials. Rather than shy away from any mention of Christmas, you might want to use it as the basis of a unit on winter holidays around the world. Older students could research different cultures and their customs. This BOOM card deck gives a fun fact and students tap on the Christmas ornament to reveal the country of the custom’s origin.
Regardless of your school’s policies on holiday activities, it is certainly a time of year to promote gratitude and generosity and good will to all. If gift-giving among students is not allowed, maybe they can participate in a community charity drive. There are Toys for Tots, winter pajama and mitten collections. Residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities always appreciate a winter concert or cards from children. Remember, food drives don’t end at Thanksgiving. Food insecurity is a year-long challenge for many people. So, whatever way you celebrate the holidays, don’t let the Grinches of the world get you down! Share the joy any way you can and jingle all the way!
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