We have set off on our Christmas Around the World adventures this month! So far we have visited France, Italy, Poland, China, and Sweden. We have been lucky to get some treats and souvenirs along the way!
This week we set off on an adventure…around the world! We are learning about winter and Christmas traditions in different countries. To start off, we talked about Canada and learned about some Aboriginal traditions in December. Every winter Solstice (the longest night and shortest day), a gratitude stick is made and buried. Mrs. Keiver helped us make our own gratitude sticks by using willow, cedar, turkey feathers, fur, ceremonial tobacco, and sinew.
We started our travels by “visiting” Victoria and hearing about life in Ottawa from Mrs. MacLeod. Next, we had a flight over to France where we checked out the Eiffel Tower. After that, we took a short flight to Sweden to learn from Mr. Chris. To finish off our week we boarded a red-eye flight to South Africa – we should arrive there on Monday :). Here are a few pictures of our travels so far:
Which place have you enjoyed learning about the most so far?
Are you going to bury your gratitude stick on December 17?
This week we had the privilege of having some International students from our high school come to our classroom to present facts about their home countries! This was a perfect wrap-up to our winter and Christmas Around the World learning from December. We listened to presentations on
Australia
Japan
Thailand
Germany
Mexico
All of the presentations were very interesting! A big thank you to our awesome presenters!
At the beginning of this week we travelled to China and Australia!
In China, Evan’s parents made us a cool video to learn about their traditions. Later, we got to make paper lanterns and hang them around our classroom!
In Australia, we had a special tour guide, Ava’s mom, who grew up in Australia! She told us about life in Australia and all of the different animals they have there.
We also checked out Christopher’s Travels Down Under. Christopher was a student in Mrs. Kostiuk’s class two years ago who went to Australia during December. He made a video to show us what it is like during Christmas in Australia.
We are busy preparing for our Christmas concert coming up, so we only had time to make it to a couple of countries last week. Tsuyoshi and his mom brought us some yummy Japanese treats as they told us some traditions from Japan.
We even got to enjoy some of it on our plane ride!
Our next stop was Croatia! We learned that Mrs. Wiebe was born in Croatia and moved to Canada with her family when she was 5. She shared some of her family’s traditions with us and baked us some cookies. We got to try some figs also!
Next, Viktor shared with us that his family is part Croatian, too. He had a cool flag to show how his family is part Canadian and part Croatian.
Viktor also brought in some Croatian coins and souvenirs!
We ended our week taking a few short “flights” around Europe to Germany and the Netherlands.
In Germany we learned how to say some phrases in German and that most of their toys are made out of wood.
We agreed that we also share the Germans love of candy and created gingerbread houses!
In the Netherlands we found out that there are more bicycles there than people! We talked about how a lot of this country has been built below sea level! We also learned that on December 5, which happened to be the day we flew to the Netherlands, children clean and polish their wooden shoes. They leave them out by the door in hopes that Sinterklaas will stop by and fill them with something. We decided it would be nice to give our school shoes a good scrub and leave them by our door. I wonder what we will find when we return to school?
Which country do you think we will visit next? Do you think it will be in Europe or a different continent?
We have been busy “travelling” around this week. On Tuesday we visited France and learned about the many tourist attractions and interesting facts about winter, Christmas, and French. Here are some shots of our trip:
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What was your favourite part of France?
Today we boarded our plane once again and had a short flight over to Poland. We were lucky to have a special tour guide, Mrs. Mohnssen, who talked to us about their Christmas Eve traditions. She even offered us a special treat they often have with their Christmas Eve dinner – perogies!
What did you learn about Christmas traditions in Poland?