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If you ask my youngest, who is now a freshman in high school, what her favorite things about being homeschooled have been, she will tell you she loved centers on Fridays (preschool and elementary school) and Christmas Around the World activities at Christmas.
A Christmas Around the World unit worked for us in preschool, elementary, and middle school. We would do our regular English and math lessons, but ditch the other subjects in the weeks before Christmas to do CAW. In elementary school, some fun resources to include for a Christmas Around the World unit include a passport like this one (free but requires login) or this one (free on TeachersPayTeachers.com). We made little suitcases out of cereal boxes covered in brown grocery bag paper one year. You can order flag stickers, but we printed flags in a reduced size and glued them on the suitcases as we studied each country. Inside the suitcase, we placed the little craft ornaments that we made representing each country. At the end, we took the suitcases to the living room and hung all the little ornaments on the tree. One year, we placed a small tree in the classroom especially for the ornaments from our CAW unit study. It was adorable, but took up a lot of space.
Books and Pinterest.com are excellent resources for CAW crafts and activities. The Internet is also a treasure trove of worksheet type activities that would make an excellent notebook or lapbook for the countries studied. Libraries are my favorite gold mine for books, but I would go early and return the books quickly after they are used so others can enjoy them. I have a few books that I use year after year including Craft it Up Christmas Around the World, Celebrate Christmas Around the World, and Tomie dePaola’s Joy to the World, shown below.
Videos on YouTube such as Travel Kids for younger children and Geography NOW for older students give students a glimpse into other cultures. I especially like searching YouTube for Christmas celebration traditions in the countries that we are including in our CAW unit that year. Students may recognize celebrations and traditions that they have in their own church or family and feel connected to those in the videos.
In addition to worksheets, crafts, and videos, cooking recipes of favorite Christmas treats from other countries is a great way to experience other cultures while slowing down to enjoy the season. Younger students will get practice with reading and following directions while getting hands on practice with measurement and fractions. While many recipes can be found in the books mentioned above, Pinterest provides a plethora of options. Prepared goodies are fun to share with friends, neighbors, or at a CAW event with other homeschoolers!
It can be completely overwhelming, there are so many options. Traditionally I chose 1 country per day for the two weeks leading up to Christmas, ideally covering at least 1-2 country per continent. However, fewer days spent on a deep dive into a particular country or continent may be more appropriate for high school students to better align with their current subjects, such as England for a British literature class or Spanish speaking countries for Spanish 1 or 2 (I will be making a separate post on the unit I have planned for Spanish 1 for this year).
Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to incorporate traditions and culture from around the globe into our own classrooms and families. It provides an opportunity to see just how alike people are around the globe, sharing the love and joy of the season, celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! Wishing you a joyful start to the Christmas season in your classroom!
North Star Homeschool Resources 