Our last week of Christmas Around the World took us to Africa. We had lots of fun looking at the 12 days of Christmas, and I ended the time by reading a short book about the African American holiday of Kwanzaa. Here are the plans I used:

Passport Pals: Christmas Around the World

Africa

Play Christmas Around the World (Wiggles #7) while kids arrive, sing together with shakers.

Welcome to our last Christmas around the World! We are going to make one more stop- at one different continent – today! Let’s do our Continent Cheer first!

Continent Cheer: GGM #3

Suitcase: stork, woven basket, drum?

Today we are going to look at Christmas in Africa! Find Africa on map.

Read “12 Days of Christmas” by Rachel Isadora (sing). This was super fun because the parents all sang along with me and the kids were able to repeat a lot, too!

Song: A Christmas song . . .

Read “A Stork in a Baobab Tree” by Catherine House. We had a good time looking at the pictures and talking about what we saw in this book.

Craft: African tribal masks. I printed off the templates on cardstock and cut them out ahead of time. The kids were able to choose which mask they wanted and then they decorated their masks with markers. I played Christmas music while they were working.

Some people in the United States celebrate another holiday right after Christmas. It is called Kwanzaa and it is a celebration of African heritage and culture.  It lasts from December 26 until January 1st. (count those days on the calendar)

In Kwanzaa, they light a different candle every night. Each candle represents something special.  This is a book about Kwanzaa.

Read: “It’s beginning to look a lot like Kwanzaa” by Rex Perry.

Stamp Passport