Unit 5 Overview
American Holidays: "Commemorate and Celebrate"
CASAS Competency: 2. Community Resources
Time Frame: 6 days

Unit 5 Picture

Goals for this unit:

  1. Students will gain perspectives on the meaning behind legal American holidays such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans’ Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.
  2. Students will assemble a timeline that represents the origin of holidays celebrated in the U.S., including their customs and practices.
  3. Students will create individual calendars indicating the holidays, school vacation days, and other important dates.
  4. Students will plan, prepare, and host an authentic holiday meal and celebrate the holiday in class.

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1—Pre-test
Teacher-led discussion follows the completion of the test.

Materials needed:
◆ Pre-test “American Holidays: ‘Commemorate and Celebrate’”

Activity 2—Present a current calendar to the students with the holidays highlighted in red. Explain that there are other holidays that are celebrated in the U.S., but these nine in particular are legal holidays because civil services - i.e., post office, governmental offices - are closed in honor of these special days. Ask students to share their country’s holidays with the rest of the class. Ask which one is their favorite? Why? What do they do in celebration of that day?

Materials needed:
◆ 12-month calendar with highlighted holidays (teacher provides)

Activity 3—Assign a specific legal holiday to pairs of students to research in the library or on the Internet. Ask them to answer the questions on the holiday worksheet and make a list of vocabulary words and their definitions that relate to their holiday. Ask them to include on the worksheet any other interesting information they find regarding their holiday.

Materials needed:
◆ Worksheet “Holiday Facts”

Activity 4—Student pairs create an illustration that represents their holiday (poster, drawing, collage, picture, greeting card, calendar image etc.).

Materials needed:
◆ Completed Worksheet “Holiday Facts”
◆ Classroom art supplies, materials, magazines (teacher provides)

Activity 5—Assemble student illustrations into a giant American holiday timeline. Then, in chronological order, students present the highlights of their respective holidays to their classmates. Teacher compiles a list of holiday vocabulary words by collecting them from the “Holiday Facts” worksheet and distributes the handout to the class. (Teacher may use these words in the unit post-test.)

Materials needed:
◆ Vocabulary list (teacher generates from student work)

Activity 6—Give each student twelve blank calendar forms to make their own calendars (or divide students into groups, assigning each group three or four months of the year). As a group, identify the holidays in each month when public services are closed and ask students to (1) highlight holidays in red; (2) mark a colored X on the days they have no school; (3) write in class field trip days; (4) draw a colored line through the vacation days in the public school system. (If students are in groups, teacher copies each group’s months for the rest of the class.) Ask the students to mark other important days in their own lives they wish to remember.

Materials needed:
◆ Worksheet “Calendar Forms”

Activity 7 (optional)—Discuss the social customs Americans practice in the U.S. for the special days the students marked on their calendars (birthdays, weddings, parties, anniversaries, funerals, etc.). Compare and contrast the practices of U.S. culture and their home countries.

Materials needed:
◆ Worksheet “Events and Customs”

Activity 8— Revisit information about legal holidays from student presentations. Choose an American holiday and celebrate it in the traditional American fashion. (Thanksgiving Day offers ample reasons to celebrate in the spirit of appreciation.) Using the “Holiday Planner” worksheet, groups of students will plan a menu, make list for shopping, cooking equipment and utensils, and generate cooking terms. Come together as a class, compare
lists, and assign jobs for finding recipes, grocery shopping, and cooking.

Materials needed:
◆ Worksheet “Holiday Planner”

Activity 9—Post-test

Materials needed:
◆ Post-test “Share What You’ve Learned”

Connected Activities:

GUEST SPEAKER
Party Planner

FIELD TRIP
Grocery Store

Supplemental Resources:

Access Reading 4, pp. 98-109

Summary:

CASAS COMPETENCIES

2. Community Resources
2.5 Use community agencies and services
2.7 Understand aspects of society and culture

VOCABULARY

Food/Cooking Related Terms Students generate lists of words and phrases
Holidays Words and phrases relevant to specific holidays (includes foods, activities, traditions, names, etc.)

SKILLS

Listening Students discuss their country’s holidays
Speaking Oral presentation of holiday research; class discussion
Reading Web site information, calendar data
Writing Information, details, origins, vocabulary, and symbols related to holidays; designing holiday illustrations
Life Skills Internet research; working knowledge of American culture and social behavior in specific settings; planning a party; grocery shopping; reading and following recipes

GRAMMAR

Proper Nouns Proper names of holidays and names of people, groups, or places they celebrate
Common Nouns Names of foods, food groups, cooking tasks, and recipes
Instructions Includes directions for cooking recipes; shopping lists

ENTERTAINMENT

Using local resources and information, students develop an awareness of social and cultural activities. Teacher and students work together to incorporate this in the course of study.

ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES

  1. Pre-test (needs assessment)
  2. Collection of data for Holiday Worksheet
  3. Social customs discussion
  4. Oral presentation
  5. Authentic dinner
  6. Holiday illustration
  7. 12-month calendar
  8. Post-Test

Activity Sheets: