| Tanenbaum Curriculum |
Religions in My Neighborhood, p. 84 |
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| Lesson Name |
Understanding The Importance of Our Family’s Traditions |
| Grade Band |
Elementary (Grades 3-5) Middle School (Grades 6-8) |
| Required Material/s |
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| Standards / Competencies |
CASEL Core Competencies
Common Core ELA-Literacy Standards
NCSS Social Studies Themes
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| Recommended Time | 1 hour and 15 minutes |
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| Essential Question | Why is it important for us to know about the traditions our families follow? |
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| Learning Objectives |
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| Important Vocabulary |
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| Activating Prior Knowledge | Ask students to circle up and bring their completed My Family’s Traditions worksheet. Review the definitions of tradition and ritual that have been posted. Give an example of a tradition and a ritual using the provided formats. Ask: How do the traditions and rituals in our families help us understand who we are? |
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| Core Instruction |
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| Wrap-up | Stay in the circle and ask: What did you notice about how similar or different our family traditions are? Discuss how some traditions are religious and others are secular. Ask: How are our community circles like our family traditions? What is it about the traditions we shared that make them so important to us? Have students think of one word that describes how following their family traditions makes them feel, and share it when the talking stick returns. |
| Learning Beyond Classroom Walls | Family Tradition Collage: Have students create a collage using pictures, drawings, or cut-outs that represent their family’s traditions. Ask students to present their collages to the class. |
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Handout 1
Name ___________________________ Date _______________
My Family’s Traditions
A tradition is a custom (something we do or a certain way of doing something) or belief that is passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes our traditions go back many, many years. Other times, our family is making traditions now to pass down. In the chart below, please list a family tradition and where it comes from if you or your family knows. A family tradition can be gathering at the home of the oldest family members for dinner once a week or a yearly family reunion. Some traditions are associated with holidays or special events. For example, “Our family celebrates Sinterklass on December 6th when all the children in the family get candy. Each of us picks a name out of the hat and we write a poem to the person we picked. On the night of December 6th, each one of us reads our poem out loud and then gives it to the person. It comes from my father who was in the army and learned about it when he went to Holland.” Or “My family always goes to the Memorial Day parade because some of the family died in the war.” Or “My family celebrates J’Ouvert. It was first celebrated in America on August 1st, Emancipation Day. It opens Carnival, a time of festivities in the West Indies where my great-grandparents were born.” Or “We always eat fish on Christmas Eve because my mother’s family came from Italy where that is a tradition.”
| Tradition | Where it Comes From |
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room.
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