5 replies to this topic

[catma]

The stories of hanuman and Rama and sita, there are many stories about christmas, A letter to father christmas, the jolly christmas postman, mogs christmas, happy christmas gemma........ What festivals are you looking at? Hannukah has a story that is written up in several easy to understand versions but can't find my copy right now!! There's always bonfire night too. most festivals will have a non-fiction slant by definition I suppose, just thought about that!!!

[Kat]

when looking through search engine found a site, haven't looked at it in great detail but it had a section on festivals and a "Kite flying festival" which may be interesting - my reception class recently made their own kites and flew them and they loved it!!!

homeschoolers

sorry if it is no good! :)

[JacquieL]

i think it is better for young get children to learn and celebrate festivals they understand and can share together with some insight. As we have Muslim, Christian and Chinese children in our setting we stick to their celebrations, plus times like birthdays and Bonfire Night. There are lots of lovely books on these themes from RE publishers such as Articles of Faith. Try typing into Amazon the topic you want. Some of the books are bi-lingual so you can send these home for bi-lingual families to read in thier mother tongue. Two big books 'My Muslim Faith and 'My Christian Faith' are usefull with Reception children and show just how many similarities there are between family celbrations and religion. hope this helps.

[pandamonium]

Tredworth, on Jul 12 2005, 22:09, said:

Thanks for your replies.  I agree with all that has been said about linking to children's own experiences.  However, in our case that would be very limiting as we are unfortunately not a multi-racial setting.  I will keep searching for imaginative stories about young children's experiences of festivals other than Christmas.  I'll let you know how I get on.

We are in the same situation regarding lack of multi-racial experiences.

We do Hanukkah (Nov-Dec, google search it! I think it is end of dec this year)
Divali (november time with a good story for acting and lots of nice artwork to do!)
Thanksgiving - first time of doing this and I have approached a Mum at our local school who is from US to come in and speak. I feel that our children are more likely to encounter this one via TV etc than they are the others so I figure it's a good idea and a nice sentiment i think - giving thanks for something...
I believe it's 3rd Thu in Nov but check that!