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Winter festivals
Winter festivals can provide stimulus for teaching subjects across the curriculum. This article offers ideas for fun activities for the class based on festivals from around the world.
As well as exploring various cultures and their traditions, celebrating special days can bring light to the sense of seasonal darkness that characterises November and December. Festivals at this time of year include:
- the Islamic Eid Al-Fitr and the end of the Ramadan fast (14 November in 2004)
- Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights (from sundown on 7 December in 2004)
- the Hindu Diwali festival (11 November in 2004)
- the winter solstice (21 December)
- the twelve days of Christmas
- the Buddhist Bodhi Day (8 December)
- Hogmanay (31 December).
The following ideas may inspire your pupils to explore the many seasonal celebrations and traditions.
Festivals of light
St Lucia's Day falls on 13 December and is celebrated mainly in
Sweden. It's just one of many festivals of light and, like other such
festivals, candles feature strongly. 'We always have a candle display at
the end of term,' said one Surrey teacher. 'We get a fantastic
collection. I use it to cover 3-D shape as well as measuring and weighing and
we have a competition to design the most amazing candle of the year. We look at
poems and stories about candles too.' Another idea is to write a poem
inspired by watching a candle burn.
Santa's workshop
'Something I love to do with a Year 1 class is to decorate two
pop-up tents with tinsel and a "Santa's Workshop" sign in the
role-play corner,' said one primary teacher. 'Inside I put construction
sets, wrapping paper, card, coloured pencils, tinsel, glitter and so on and two
or three children at a time go in to make a present for a friend, wrap it up
and write a label. We keep track of who gives and receives so no one is left
out and we talk about always saying something nice about a gift even if you
don't like it. At plenary time, the gifts are exchanged.'
Hanukah games
'I play Dreidel, the popular game played at Hanukah,
with my children with the help of a virtual dreidel (spinning top),' said
one East Sussex teacher. 'We play for macaroni and they love it. We talk
about the Hebrew words and use the game as a numeracy opportunity too. Read
more information about Dreidel and Hanukah.
A Christmas story slide show
Pupils can tell the Christmas story through a Powerpoint slide show.
Every child can appear in staged photographs which can even be sold to parents
to raise money. At key points of the slide show, the children can sing songs
and narrate parts of the story.
Mathematics with calendars
One Mathematics teacher from Wiltshire suggests looking at calendars
during the winter. 'The Centre for Innovations in Mathematics Teaching has
downloadable three-dimensional models to make, ranked in order of difficulty.
You can also look at how the calendar repeats over time. I use this time of
year to do investigations about surface area and volume too, and link it to
wrapping boxes and parcels.' For more information, visit the Centre for Innovations in
Mathematics Teaching website.
Cross-cultural customs
'Something I aim to do with all my History groups is to take a
Christmas custom and trace its origins back over time and, in some cases,
through different religions,' said one Humanities teacher. 'The obvious
topics are Christmas trees and mistletoe but any strand of any winter festival
can be chosen. It's up to you how detailed these studies are but, in my
experience, getting each student to give a short presentation on what they have
found out always goes down well.'
The science of Christmas
Can Reindeer Fly? Author Roger Highfield has been looking into it and
the FirstScience has
the lowdown. Also, INTECH, the hands-on interactive science and technology
centre in Winchester, is running a special event on 15 December 2004 about the
science of Christmas. Visit the INTECH
and First Science sites for further details.
Buy Nothing Day
It is estimated that 70 per cent of retail items are sold in the
run-up to Christmas. Buy Nothing Day was created in response to this and
falls on Saturday 27 November in 2004. To focus on the issues around consumer
spending for winter festivals as part of Citizenship in your school, try the Fairtrade, Ethical
Consumer and Eco-schools websites for ideas.
Festival songs
Music is central to many of the mid-winter celebrations that take
place around the world. One idea used by some secondary Music teachers, but
equally relevant in English departments, is to write a song based on any theme
from any winter festival. If students perform their songs, even
better!
This article was commissioned by TeacherNet's
editorial team, independently of DCSF policy teams.
Last updated: 31 July 2007
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