SMMARTideas

SMMART READING: CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS AROUND THE WORLD

I LOVE reading about cultures all over the world...and especially how different countries celebrate their holidays.

Every day in December, this "Christmas Around the World" cultural holiday calendar, from the December 2009 Friend Magazine, describes a holiday tradition from another culture.

Your child can help you read the words or point out letters as you read a tradition every day. As you read about a country's tradition, your child matches a picture to the described event. Tape the picture onto the calendar each day and by Christmas, you and your child will have made 25 cultural discoveries.

My little girl wanted to play the "game" all in one sitting...and we've played it several times since this month.

I thought it would be fun to recreate many of these world-wide traditions with my children. One night we could eat a traditional Liberian holiday dinner or bisquits, rice and beef. Another night we could make little clay lamps and learn about the Indian holiday tradition...or eat our version of traditional holiday cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

Laminate this Christmas Calendar. Cut out the little square pictures and laminate those too. Now you have an international Christmas Tradition Calendar that you can reuse every year.

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