CHRISTMAS, EASTER, HALLOWEEN, Host a Party - World Traditions, Crafts, Facts

Host your own party to celebrate a specific time of the year with your students from Halloween, Christmas or Easter. We have included our three party planning products which takes a global look at the traditions surrounding Halloween, Christmas and Easter, produced fact packs for each and linked each tradition with a craft, a project, activity or a sensory experience (taste, smell and touch).

Host a Halloween Party

Host your own Halloween Party with your students where they can learn all about where our Halloween traditions come from whilst at the same time, creating, tasting, playing and smelling Halloween in their own classrooms!

We have devised the product to use with our own students in order to build on their excitement for this very exciting season. We have used a number of well-known traditions to create a party pack where your students can learn where they came from, how they developed over years and to also have a go at creating, playing, tasting and smelling Halloween. The aim was to ensure that our students knew why we have and do the things we do at Halloween time, often bringing the learning back to the variations of how cultures believe their dead ancestors can be guided back to their families for one night only.

The product includes the following resources:

• Full instructions and resource list to support the activities
• PowerPoint introduction to the activity for the students
• World chart for each student to have to record where in the world they have visited
• 11 Fact Cards - sharing traditions, their countries of origin and how the tradition developed and a suggested activity which links with the tradition.

The resource can be used in one of two ways with your students:

• As a whole class looking at the 11 traditions one at a time or,
• As 11 stations set up and the students move around at their own speed and using their own choices of where they want to go and what they want to learn about (this is the far more exciting choice for students to engage in!)

The 11 traditions and their countries of origin are:

• Lighted Lamp (Austria)
• Jack O' Lanterns (Ireland)
• Lanterns (China)
• Costumes (France)
• Skeletons (Mexico 1)
• Incense Burning and Monarch Butterflies (Mexico 2)
• Trick or treating (USA 1)
• Black Cat (UK 1)
• Bobbing for apples (UK 2)
• Bats and Spiders (Medieval English folklore)
• Witches (USA 2)

As the students move to each activity and learn about the origins of the tradition using the information cards, a linked activity has been created to encourage them to experience Halloween traditions. Timings are up to the teacher, and can last an afternoon easily. Students, upon completion, mark their travels on a world map which each student has at the start of the activity - this is included within the resources of the product, and reminds them of where they have been.

A resource list has been created with ideas as to how the children can make/taste/play/smell the 11 traditions. Most are inexpensive and ideas for how to make the most of resources have been included in the instruction booklet.

Activities include:

• Painting clay lamp pots and adding a tea light into it (Austria)
• Carving pumpkins (Ireland)
• Making and decorating paper lanterns (China)
• Putting a range of costumes together with face paints and trying to create as many Halloween "characters" as possible (France)
• Using a range of cut out cardboard bones, skulls and vertebrae, create different weird and wonderful creatures (Mexico)
• Burn a range of incense sticks to smell the different scents whilst coloring in outlines on Monarch Butterflies (Aztecs - Mexico)
• Card Game developed with Trick or Treat challenges (USA)
• Turning a black cat cut out into a brightly colored animal (UK)
• Bobbing for apples (UK)
• Toffee apples - tasting them and prizes for apple bobbing and treats for the Trick and Treat challenge, as well as the bets tasting witches potions (UK)
• Color and paint bats and spiders to make them appear not so scary using luminous pens
• Create witches potions using a wide range of soft drinks, sodas and other juices. The best tasting potions win a toffee apple (USA Witches)

Our students loved this product, and it was an exciting afternoon of activities in the build up to the Halloween celebrations. We hope that your students love it too!

Host a Christmas Party

We have devised the product to use with our own students in order to build on their excitement for "the most wonderful time of the year" identifying Christmas traditions, where they come from, how they developed over years and to also have a go at creating and tasting some of the traditions. The aim was to ensure that our students knew why we have and do the things we do at Christmas time, often bringing the learning back to the true meaning of Christmas, celebrating the Christmas story, and variations on a theme with cultural stories related to the giving of gifts.

The product included the following resources:

• Full instructions and resource list to support the activities
• PowerPoint introduction to the activity for the students
• Global chart for each student to have to record where in the world they have visited
• 11 Fact Cards - sharing traditions, their countries of origin and how the tradition developed

The resource can be used in one of two ways with your students:

• As a whole class looking at the 11 traditions one at a time or,
• As 11 stations set up and the children move around at their own speed and using their own choices of where they want to go and what they want to learn about (this is the far more exciting choice for students to engage in!)

The 11 traditions and their countries of origin are:

• Yule Log (Scandinavia)
• Chocolate Log (Belgium)
• Bells (Spain)
• Christmas Tree (United Kingdom)
• Poinsettia (Mexico)
• Candy Canes (Germany)
• Christmas Log Slices (Catalonia)
• Christingle (Germany 2)
• Christmas Star (Bethlehem)
• Shoes (Belgium 2)
• Christmas Crackers (Australia)

As the children move to each activity, a resource list has been created with ideas as to how the children can make/taste the 11 traditions. Most are inexpensive and ideas for how to make the most of resources have been included in the instruction booklet.

Our children loved this activity, and it was an exciting afternoon of activities in the build up to the Christmas break. We hope that your students love it too!

Host an Easter Party

Host your own Easter Party with your students where they can learn all about where our Easter traditions come from whilst at the same time, creating, tasting, playing and smelling Easter in their own classrooms!

We have devised the product to use with our own students in order to build on their excitement for this very exciting season of bunnies, eggs, hunts and parades. We have used a number of well-known traditions to create a party pack where your students can learn where they came from, how they developed over years and to also have a go at creating, playing, tasting and smelling Easter. The aim was to ensure that our students knew why we have and do the things we do at Easter time, often bringing the learning back to the variations of how cultures believe different things surrounding this period of religious significance, as well as spring time crop and animal growth.

The product includes the following resources:

• Full instructions and resource list to support the activities
• PowerPoint introduction to the activity for the students
• World chart for each student to have to record where in the world they have visited
• 12 Fact Cards - sharing 12 traditions, their countries of origin and how the tradition developed and a suggested activity which links with the tradition.

The resource can be used in one of two ways with your students:

• As a whole class looking at the 12 traditions one at a time or,
• As 12 stations set up and the students move around at their own speed and using their own choices of where they want to go and what they want to learn about (this is the far more exciting choice for students to engage in!)

The 12 traditions and their countries of origin are:

• Easter Egg Roll (Washington DC USA)
• Fly a Kite (Bermuda)
• Make a fire (Finland)
• Costumes (Sweden)
• Omelette making (France)
• Easter Bonnet making (Australia)
• Easter Bunny (Germany)
• Colorful Carpets (Guatemala)
• Fireworks (Italy)
• Hot Cross Buns (Greece)
• Easter Egg Hunt (United Kingdom)
• Stations of the Cross (Jerusalem)

As the students move to each activity and learn about the origins of the tradition using the information cards, a linked activity has been created to encourage them to experience Easter traditions. Timings are up to the teacher, and can last an afternoon easily. Students, upon completion, mark their travels on a world map which each student has at the start of the activity - this is included within the resources of the product, and reminds them of where they have been.

A resource list has been created with ideas as to how the children can make/taste/play/smell the 12 traditions. Most are inexpensive and ideas for how to make the most of resources have been included in the instruction booklet. Additional resources have also been included within the product to support preparation and delivery of the activities which include:

• Notes and ideas on how to make kites including the structure
• Sequencing activity and answer key for the order of the 15 Stations of the Cross

The 12 Activities Include:

• Decorating and rolling a hard boiled egg (USA)
• Making and flying a kite (Bermuda)
• Collage of flames from tissue paper (Finland)
• Dressing up in costumes, face painting and stick decorating (Sweden)
• Making an omelette (France)
• Making an Easter Bonnet (Australia)
• Tasting different Easter bunnies - or being given one to take home (Germany)
• Designing on paper, colorful carpets (Guatemala)
• Blow painting on black card to recreate fireworks (Italy)
• Tasting hot cross buns (Greece)
• Taking part in an Easter Egg hunt (United Kingdom)
• Understanding the sequence and significance of the 15 stations of the cross - the final walk undertaken by Jesus in the Christian faith before his crucifixion.

Our students loved this product, and it was an exciting afternoon of activities in the build up to the Easter celebrations. We hope that your students love it too!

Best wishes to you

INSPIReducation