Activity One: How Many Christmases Are There?
Suitable for: Rec to Year 3
Learning Focus:
To understand why some countries celebrate Christmas on different days
To know about some of the Christmas traditions from around the world
Ask the children how many Christmases they think there are? You’re likely to be told that it’s a silly question and that there’s only one.
Ask them to investigate whether there really is only one Christmas. One of the best sites for this is www.whychristmas.com. By looking at the different countries in the ‘Christmas Around the World’ section they’ll find that Christmas is celebrated on lots of different dates. From the information they collect ask them to do a ‘Christmas calendar’ showing all the dates and the countries which celebrate Christmas on those dates.
Activity Two: How Many Santas?
Suitable for: Rec to Year 3
Learning Focus:
To know there is a historical basis for the persona of Santa
To understand that there are different forms of Santa around the world
Just as there are many different dates for Christmas there are many different forms of Santa. Using the website from the previous activity, ask the pupils to find out what the different names are and what their origins are. We get Santa Claus from the Dutch, Père Nӧel from France and more as they’ll find out.
Activity Three: Explaining Christmas: How Does Santa Do It All?
Suitable for: Rec to Year 3
Learning Focus:
To be able to suggest potential ways Santa can carry out his tasks referring to scientific and geographical knowledge
To be able to suggest a transport system for a technologically advanced Santa based on their knowledge of science and technology
We all know that Santa works very hard in the run up to Christmas, marshalling the elves to make all the toys for well-behaved children and on Christmas Eve, the culmination of the season arrives with Santa mounting his sleigh and heading off to deliver the presents but how does he do it all?
This is the time for some philosophical thinking from the class. How can Santa possibly deliver all the presents in one night and how does he know which present goes to whom?
From their ideas, ask the pupils to write instructions for a new Santa to be able to deliver the presents.
Now ask the pupils to use their knowledge of technology to suggest ways that Santa might be able to do his work even more effectively. They might consider remote control drones delivering presents with Santa controlling them from a screen. They could consider a time travelling sleigh or Santa clones that can all work together.
From these ideas, ask them to do a design for Santa, labelled with how their idea will work.
