December is a great time of year to sneak in some geography studies as you and your children learn how people celebrate Christmas around the world.
In this post, I will suggest projects and activities for all ages to help your family learn about the Christmas traditions of other cultures.
Instead of using ready-made printables, use this opportunity to teach your children to do research and to share their research. This will teach them more skills AND they will remember much more of what they learn.
Where to find your information?
Public libraries (and perhaps your church has a library) are great starting places. If you know people living in the country, get one of your children to email them. Go to Youtube and search “Christmas in (country)”.
Here are two websites that include many countries
Of course, you can also do an internet search using phrases like “Christmas traditions in (country)”.
ChatGPT and other AI can give you ideas of projects and info on different countries.
And don’t forget Pinterest! It will contain a wealth of ideas.
What kind of projects can you do?
The activities and projects you do to teach your children about Christmas Around the World will depend on their age and the sorts of things you enjoy doing as a family.
If you have a number of children who will participate you could give each child a different activity to work on and then you can come together and each child can use their project to teach the rest of the family.
Project ideas
- Research traditional Christmas food for the country, locate a recipe, bake / cook the food. Then eat it!!
- What is Christmas called in the country? Does Father Christmas have a different name? What are other words relating to Christmas used there? Make a word cloud using a resource like ABCYa!
- Put together a slideshow of Christmas traditions
- Make an ornament like one you might buy in that country
- Find and play Christmas songs from the country
- Create a Christmas card using phrases in the language of the country and graphics that relate to their traditions
- Write a Christmas play set in that country – and perform it!
- Find a traditional Christmas story / legend from the country and read it
- Create an picture e-book on Storyjumper explaining the traditions of the country
- Make an online game / quiz on the traditions using Kahoot, Quizizz, or ClassTools
- Do a craft that this country makes over Christmas eg Yule log
- If your children know Scratch, they can program a drama that teaches about Christmas in a specific country
- Make a video explaining the tradition. This could be your child speaking, or it could be an animation using a tool like Powtoon
- Use a tool like Canva to make a virtual poster or collage about Christmas in the country. Or use markers and cardstock
If all these ideas sound great but you would rather it is all laid out for you, consider buying an online unit study from Techie Homeschool Mom.
More ideas
You can wrap up your studies by comparing and contrasting the different countries you have studied. Brainstorming with your children how best to do this will be a valuable experience! Some suggestions: tables, charts, Venn diagrams.
I would love to see your children’s creations. See my bio below for where to connect with me!
Bio:
Meryl van der Merwe homeschooled her 4 children and during that time started teaching at the local homeschool co-op. She still teaches there – as well as online at FundaFunda Academy.
Meryl also hosts the Homeschooling with Technology podcast. In her spare time, she loves reading and traveling.
