Happy Kwanzaa! This month, there’s quite a few holidays that are celebrated. We talk to the children about the different holidays that are celebrated and not every one celebrates the same holidays. For example, this week’s theme is Kwanzaa and we talked to the children about this holiday. This holiday was started in 1966 by a teacher named, Maulana Karenga because he wanted people to learn about their past in Africa. This holiday is celebrated by African-Americans and it lasts for 7 days (December 26 – January 1)..Families gather to eat food, share stories, and give gifts. There are 7 ideas celebrated and they try to live by each idea and they are celebrated on a different day of Kwanzaa. They decorate their home in red, black, and green. Red stands for their struggles, black is for the African- American people, and green stands for hope. Like Hanukkah, they have candles lit on each day but they use a wooden candle holder called the Kinara which has 3 red candles, 1 black candle, and 3 green candles. The black candle gets lit on the first because it stands for Unity and each day after that a candle gets lit. We feel that its important for the children to understand that not everyone celebrates Christmas but there are other holidays that are celebrated.
The children learned about the 7 ideas that are celebrated by its actual words and what they mean. The 7 ideas that are celebrated each day are: Umoja, Kujchagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani. We did a few of these ideas to that the children are able to understand how they celebrate this ideas.
We made a list of Pp words, they practiced writing Kwanzaa words, and they practiced writing letters. The children did a candle letter recognition activity where they had to say what the letter is and what word starts with the letter that they picked. They also did a letter sound activity where that had letters Aa-Pp to choose from and they had to figure out what sound that letter makes. We did a recall activity where the children had to tell me what they remembered I taught them about Kwanzaa.
The children did a Kwanzaa roll and cover activity where they rolled the dice and whatever number came up, they had to cover it with a bingo marker. They picked a card and they had to count the number of candles to put on the Kinara. They did a bead counting activity where they had to string beads, count how many was on the pipe cleaner and find the number card that goes with. They wanted to do some simple addition and we did that as well.
They did a Kinara art project, they drew a picture of what anything they wanted because it was a gift and they made a mkeka mat. It was a fun week learning about a different holiday and I hope that your children enjoyed learning about Kwanzaa. The children made Christmas presents for their parents and we hope they you love them!
I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa!
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out!