[00:00:00] Kirsten: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Social Studies Teacher Podcast. Today I am gonna share with you some quick teacher tips on making holiday lessons inclusive.

[00:00:16] The question I want you to answer today is, how can you make your classroom more inclusive this holiday season without doubling your prep time? The holiday season can be such a special time of year, but as teachers, we know it can be a balancing act as well. We want to celebrate and have a little bit of fun, but we also wanna make sure every single student is respected and included.

[00:00:38] So in today's episode, I'm gonna share with you. Four different ways you can make your holiday celebrations more inclusive while also still keeping things simple and engaging and meaningful for your students. Before we get started, I want you to make sure you subscribe and like this video. I want you to be able to get those notifications every [00:01:00] time a Social Studies podcast episode comes up, so please make sure to subscribe.

[00:01:04] I would truly appreciate the follow and you can also make sure to listen to this. Episode, wherever you love to listen to podcasts, whether that's Spotify or Apple. And you can also read this episode on the blog if you go to the southern teach.com/blog. Alright, let's go ahead and get started. Tip number one is to focus on.

[00:01:27] Themes, if you've got a lot of holidays to cover, or you've got a wide range of students that celebrate a variety of different holidays, it might be better to focus on big universal themes rather than specific holidays. Think about ideas like gratitude, light, community generosity, and new beginnings. If you think about the idea of light.

[00:01:52] There are three holidays that I can think of off the top of my head. Hanukkah, Kwanza, Ali. Those all have [00:02:00] ideas of light good over evil, or just representing hope and renewal in different ways depending on what the holiday is. Another idea is instead of focusing on Christmas. You can research and write in a journal activity of ways people around the world show generosity and kindness.

[00:02:22] During the winter months. Students might talk about volunteering and giving gifts and spending time with family, and these are all things that cross cultures and traditions. So focusing on themes is a great way. For you to include everyone while also getting into the spirit of the season. The second tip is to keep it interactive.

[00:02:45] Students love learning when they get to experience something hands on. You could set up some type of winter around the world Station rotation around the room. One can be a station on making paper lanterns that [00:03:00] celebrate light. Another one could be different ways in different languages. People say Happy New Year.

[00:03:06] And then another one can be basically learning about different. Traditional foods that people eat during the winter months or winter holidays. You could even do something simple like. Ways people celebrate winter in cold climates versus warmer climates. When students are moving and creating, doing something hands-on, they're going to retain that information and remember it than if they were to read a passage and answer questions.

[00:03:35] Of course, there's a time and place for that, but it's also fun to incorporate something where they can actually do something meaningful and hands on. The third tip is to be inclusive. Include celebrations from different cultures and parts of the world. There's OMI Soka in Japan. There's Bodhi Day for Buddhists in early December, and you could even research or talk about St.

[00:03:59] [00:04:00] Lucia's Day in Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia. You could also create a holiday connections board. Somewhere in the classroom on a bulletin board, students will have sticky notes and they can share different traditions and things that they do during winter break or things that they do for different holidays that they may celebrate in November or December and January.

[00:04:20] This is a great way if you're not able to celebrate or talk about every single holiday, but it gives students the space to share their culture with their classmates. The last tip I have is to promote respect. It's super easy to fall into oversimplifying traditions. I know I've been there, but taking the time to help students understand that every culture has depth and understanding can promote a lot of respect and inclusivity.

[00:04:49] For example, we know that there's the Diwali holiday, and instead of saying something generalized like, oh, everybody in India celebrates Diwali. You could. [00:05:00] Think and understand that actually not everybody in India may celebrate Diwali, and the way people celebrate might vary from region to region and family to family.

[00:05:11] You could even also think about. Starting a short discussion of why learning about other celebrations matter, and you want to, during this discussion emphasize curiosity and respect and empathy, rather than it being a competition and comparing and saying, oh, my holiday is better. I like my celebration better.

[00:05:34] When students see that differences are something to learn from and not judge. It helps build a more inclusive classroom culture. So to recap the four quick tips I have for you to make holiday lessons inclusive. Number one, focusing on themes rather than specific holidays. Things that a lot of holidays in the winter have in common, such as light and generosity [00:06:00] and community.

[00:06:01] The second activity idea, keeping it interactive with hands-on activities and rotations. Number three, being inclusive by sharing global celebrations and traditions. And number four, showing respect with cultural diversity. These little changes can help make a big impact with your students for this holiday season.

[00:06:22] Thank you so much for tuning into this video. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you got some ideas to take away for the upcoming winter months. The next episode drop will be an audio only episode, and I'm excited it's. Little bit of a surprise, and I am excited for you to listen. So this will be published on November 24th, and it's gonna be during Thanksgiving break for a lot of people.

[00:06:50] So while you won't see my lovely face, I will have an episode published for that day. It will just be an audio only episode. [00:07:00] And when you learn about the topic. It'll make a lot of sense, but I think you'll enjoy it either way. So I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will talk to you again soon.