American Holidays and Celebrations

1. American HolidaysandCelebrations

2. Kiss a Loved One at Midnight

3. Traditions: Champaign toast and countdown at midnight, watching the ball drop on TV, banging pots and pans (as a child), spending time with family and friends Decorations: hats/glasses with new year on them Special foods: Champaign or sparkling grape juice Special activities: writing resolutions (goals) for the new year

4. Resolutionsare a way to start the year off fresh and set goals for the upcoming year Pretend it is a new year. Create at least 3 new resolutions for the upcoming year. Example: Exercise each day Cook 3x’s a week Strategies to use with your students: Fist to five – Teacher asks students how much more time they need to complete a task. Students hold up their fingers to show anywhere from one to five more minutes. Silent Appointment – We make an appointment to work with someone by using only nonverbal communication without talking. Then, we meet with our partner to discuss our learning. When we are finished listening and sharing, we return to our seats and are ready to share what we learned from our partner.

5. Example of a school Valentine box and a Valentine card that kids would exchange Popular Valentine Candy Red Roses are a common gift

6. Origin: Legend says that Valentine’s Day is celebrated to remember a priest named Valentine who secretly married many young couples when it was forbidden by the emperor. He was eventually caught, arrested, imprisoned and executed. On February 14th he was beheaded and was named a saint after his death. Traditions: Tell loved ones how you feel about them, give them a gifts/cards to show them how you feel, and go to a nice dinner with your loved one Decorations: hearts, cupid Special foods: chocolate covered strawberries are popular Special activities: children make homemade Valentine boxes to collect cards they get from classmates, they fill out cards and exchange with their friends 189 million roses are produced for Valentine’s Day -64% are red (means “I love you”) -4% are yellow (“friendship”)

7. The Perfect Mate Write a list of the 3 most important traits for a mate to have. These can include (appearance, personality, character). Strategies to use with your students: Fist to five – Teacher asks students how much more time they need to complete a task. Students hold up their fingers to show anywhere from one to five more minutes. Whip Around– To show what we know, we each take a turn sharing our very quick thoughts. All of us are ready and share our ideas aloud, and we use turn-taking.

8. Origin: Irish holiday celebrated all around the world to honor the patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick. One Irish tale tells how St. Patrick used the clover to explain the Trinity. His followers adopted the practice of wearing a clover on his feast day, and this eventually led to people wearing green. MARCH 17th Traditions: wear green and attend a parade Decorations: leprechauns, shamrocks, anything green Special foods: corn beef and cabbage, green beer Special activities: attend a parade

9. We live in an Irish neighborhood, so we invite friends over for a party. We decorate our house with green decorations and dye food green for the party. We wear green and walk down the street to view a parade. St. Patrick’s Day Parade

10. LUCKY A four-leaf clover is often considered lucky in the West. What are some things which are considered lucky in China? What are some superstitions in your country? What are some things that are considered unlucky? Strategies to use with your students: Greet and Meet/Tea Party – Students walk around the room to complete their task. They must first greet their person in an acceptable manner depending on the situation the teacher has provided.

11. Photo with the Easter Bunny Easter Basket Traditions: My family celebrates by going to Church, having a brunch (breakfast and lunch meal), and by hiding eggs on the day of for children to find. Before Easter we dye eggs and children get their pictures taken with the Easter Bunny. Dyed Eggs

12. On Easter, it is common for children to search for eggs. We are going to put our own spin on that today to participate in an activity called the tank. • To participate: • We will be in 4 teams. • One person from each team will go inside the tank (marked area). • The object is for the person to get more eggs than the other 3 people in the tank. • The person inside the tank will be blindfolded. • It is the job of the blindfolded person’s teammates to direct them to the eggs. • You have to use descriptive words to lead your partner and strategize with teammates. This is a great way to practice using direction words with your students.

13. Traditions: These are separate days where I honor my mother and father. On Mother’s Day, I buy my mom and grandmothers cards. On Father’s Day, I buy cards and gifts for my dad and grandpas. In addition to the cards and gifts, my family gets together and has some sort of meal together and spends the day honoring the people who are mothers/fathers. For example, since my dad enjoys golfing, we might all go golf with him.

14. Traditions: We always go to a BBQ or have a BBQ with family and friends. We also buy fireworks or go somewhere to see fireworks.

15. Start and end our school year Last Monday in May First Monday in September Traditions: These are separate days that are federal holidays, so I am off of work (all government employees and many small businesses are closed). I usually spend these days with my family relaxing. We almost always have a BBQ meal. On Memorial Day we might go put flowers by the gravesite of my grandpa who served our country in war.

16. Me dressed as an old woman Me dressed as Luigi from Super Mario Brothers

17. Origin:a Catholic holy day in honor of saints. All spirits who died throughout the year were thought to return in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. No one wanted to be possessed, so people extinguished fires in their homes to make them look uninviting and cold. People would also dress up in rags and parade around to scare away spirits. Now we wear costumes to frighten and amuse our friends. The custom of trick-or-treating began when beggars went door to door begging for soul cakes (bread with raisins). It was thought that the more cakes they received, the more prayers they promised to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donor. At the time, the spirit of the dead was thought to be in limbo. In order to help the dead get to heaven, even prayers from strangers were thought to help speed a soul’s passage into heaven. Traditions: We celebrate by dressing up and giving out candy. We turn our outside house light on when it gets dark and kids come to our house for candy. Before Halloween we carve a pumpkin, buy/make a costume, decorate the house to look scary, and buy candy for the trick-or-treaters.

18. Question Q: Answer A: You will be telling a joke to 3 people and listening to jokes by 3 others.

19. Thanksgiving Tradition How it Started http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/culture/thanksgiving/

20. Traditions: We have a large family meal at my parents’ house. The entire family comes over. My mother cooks a turkey, and the other members of the family bring a side dish. We eat and say what we are thankful for and watch football.

21. President Pardons a Turkey http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=15015505 http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/jake-tapper-pardoned-thanksgiving-turkey-presidential-tradition-12229707

22. Traditions: We celebrate Christmas by going to Church to celebrate Christ’s birth. We also have a family meal where we exchange presents with each other. Before the holiday we decorate our homes by putting up a Christmas tree and stockings on our fireplace mantles. My Tree

23. It is common for children especially to write lists of gifts they are wishing for on Christmas. They often mail these to Santa. Since exchanging gifts on Christmas includes adults too, it is common for adults to write lists of what they want as well. Kids and adults often use the weekly ads included in the newspaper to help them create their wish lists.

24. Create a Christmas List Pretend you are celebrating Christmas You need to go through the ads provided from stores in the United States 2. Create a list of at least 2 items you would like for yourself to put on your wish list 3. Create another list of at least 2 items you would buy for a loved one in your family (pick out something they need or you think they would enjoy) 4. Circle the items or write them down and explain why you want them for yourself or for your family member 5. We will share in a few minutes Strategies to use with your students: Fist to five – Teacher asks students how much more time they need to complete a task. Students hold up their fingers to show anywhere from one to five more minutes. Musical Shares – Teacher plays music as students dance around the room. When the music stops, they discuss with the person they are closest to. Then you start the music and repeat a few times.

26. Photos with Santa – Not always a great experience for the little ones

27. Holidays by Season

28. SUMMER SPRING FALL WINTER

29. Holidays for Heroes • In groups create a new holiday for a hero. • The hero may be someone past or present, local, national, or international. • Pick a date for the celebration. • Create some traditions, decorations, special foods, and special activities.

30. Let’s Review with Hot Box • We’ve learned a lot of information about American holidays. We are going to review by playing a game. • To play: • One person faces the group and has their back to the board, facing their classmates • The teacher writes down a term on the board to review behind the student’s head • The class gives clues and the person in the “Hot Box” tries to guess based on the descriptions given You could use this with your students to review any material. It’s a great way to test everyone's’ knowledge .