Lesson Plan: Celebrations

Rationale: Many of the festivals and community events we celebrate were brought by our families or our ancestors from other countries. Understanding and sharing in these celebrations is an important way to establish closer ties among people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. This is an opportunity for students to identify and celebrate Indiana's wonderful cultural heritage as a positive and enriching legacy of immigration; equally importnat, it is also an opportunity to improve their online research skills.

Materials: Access to the world wide web, pen, paper, photographs if available, calendar.

Timeframe: One to three hours

Method:

1. Create a cultural calendar for your class to share and celebrate.

a) Begin by taking a survey: Give students 5 minutes to write down the answers to the following questions: What are your favorite holidays and celebrations? What celebrations are unique to your family or community? Why do you celebrate? Write their answers on the board and encourage students to discuss the similarities and differences in these events.

b)Ask each student to write about a specific holiday or celebration that is unique to their cultural heritage. These may include family picnics or trips to a sports event, religious celebrations, festivals, or nationwide celebrations. Students should identify not only what happens, but why this is important to their identity. Ideas to keep in mind: -purpose of the event - birth, coming of age, marriage, death, etc. -participants - who is there, how old are they, what is their gender, what is their responsibility at these events -what happens - is their any unique food, clothing or music that defines this event? -where does it take place? -how often does this take place? -why is this important to you and your family or community? -do you have a photograph of this event you can share?

c)Finally, build your calendar, using photographs, stories, recipes and ideas suggested by your students. Ideally, this could be created and distributed on the world wide web, but making something tangible with paper and pencils also works well!

2) A fast Online exercise!

Divide students into small groups. Assign each group a specific holiday to research on the world wide web. Besure that they ask the same questions - purpose, participants, what happens, when, where and why! Some of the best websites to begin their search include: google.com and hotbot.com.

Here's a brief list of holidays to research:

  • Cinco de Mayo
  • Divali
  • Juneteenth
  • Ramadan
  • Kwanzaa
  • Octoberfest

Did you know that all these holidays are celebrated in Indiana?