Celebrating other traditions
Published 8:26 pm Thursday, December 18, 2008
Most teachers make sure to tell their students that people all over the world celebrate the Christmas holiday.
Many of them will even explain that even though people all over the world celebrate Christmas, they all don’t celebrate in the same way. At Jemison Elementary the tradition is to let the kids travel around the world. That is the kids travel around the world by visiting classrooms that are themed to celebrate Christmas from different parts of the world.
“Every year the second grade really loves getting to do this,” Principal Louise Pitts said. “They seem to be very interested in what the kids their age are doing to celebrate Christmas in other parts of the world.”
The students visited Mexico, Poland, Germany, Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Britain and Italy during their world tour. To make sure the students understood the difference in traveling from room to room, each child was given a “passport” that was stamped from every part of the world. During their visit the kids would either create something or learn a song that represented the way each country celebrates Christmas.
“The kids get to keep their passports with the stamps as well as all of the projects that they build during their visit to each country,” Pitts said.
– Ashley McCartney can be reached at ashley.mccartney.com