Christmas in Mexico

Yesterday my kinders and I traveled to Mexico! We began the lesson on Thursday by making a poinsettia to take home, after reading The Legend of the Poinsettia By Tomie dePaola. We started early because I just knew that we would not have time for everything on Friday.

These poor students have had to look at this giant star piñata in the classroom for a whole week! But they did so well, they knew it was happening Friday so they didn't really ask about it until Friday morning.

So here was our plan of attack. We "flew" to Mexico and learned about Las Posadas and other Christmas traditions during our "in flight" movie. After we landed we put our new stamp in our passport and colored out Mexican boy and girl while listening to La Navidad musica. Then we took a break for lunch and recess.

When we came back I read them 'Twas Nochebuena. I requested this book be ordered for our library last year because I knew I would use it during my unit. It's a fantastic story set to the layout of the traditional Night Before Christmas.  It takes you through a families Christmas Eve celebrations. Now, imagine my complete excitement when I saw that 'Twas Nochebuena was on Scholastic Book Club! Yay! Ordered it for my classroom right away, along with the Spanish version as it was only a $1.00.

After reading the story we had an impromptu sing along to Feliz Navidad. They were so excited that they knew what it meant. Then on to our own Posadas! We traveled to three rooms. At each we asked for lodging.  Twice we were turned away. But at the final room we found lodging and a place to lay baby Jesus. At this point we sang Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus and headed back to our classroom.

Then it was time for the craziness, piñata!

I often wonder why I do these crazy things. Then I realize it is because we are making memories in Kinder, and they will not forget this lesson for quite some time. We yelled Dale Dale, hit it, before every strike and every kid had a turn. Finally I took a swing at it and broke it open for the run to the candy.

What an awesome day! Our candle for las Posadas went in our suitcase as our souvenir and we flew back to PA and headed home for the weekend.

Phew! I am so tired this week! But I am also have the best time with my students. On Monday we travel to Nigeria and also have our Sinterklaas surprise! Woohoo!

Happy Teaching,
Kristen.


Stop over at my TpT store to grab my Holidays around the World Bundle - complete with Common Core Aligned Activities!