I’m so excited to share these Holidays Around the World worksheets so your readers can explore 9 traditions, this holiday season. With kids from so many different countries celebrating different holidays, it’s important to help everyone feel welcome in your classroom. Or, if you don’t have students from different countries, but would just like to share holiday traditions from different cultures, these Holidays Around the World passages are a great way to do just that. The month of December is a great time to focus on winter holidays by learning fun facts about different traditions from around the world. Read more about how you can use these Holidays Around the World worksheets in your classroom!
9 Holidays to Explore
While many students in the United States may be very familiar with Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and Christmas Eve, not all have the same Christmas celebrations. Whether they are new to the country, celebrate different holidays, or simply do not have a family that does a lot during the holiday seasons, this month is a great time to talk about winter holidays. Let your students get immersed in different cultures as they read through different traditions and activities done for the various holidays. You might find that students already know some fun facts about these winter holidays, while others they may know very little about, until reading their holidays around the world passages.
The 9 holidays to explore with these holidays around the world worksheets are:
- Diwali (Festival of Lights)
- Hanukkah
- Santa Lucia (St. Lucia Day)
- Las Posadas
- Christmas
- Kwanza
- New Year’s Eve
- Chinese New Year
- Ramadan
The Holidays Around the World themed reading passages focus on basic concepts about each holiday, such as traditional activities and meals. These printable activities are intended for use by Kindergarten-2nd grade students. The main goal with them is to build confidence as readers are decoding words out of context as a warm up, and then within the passage, itself. The reading is followed up by completing comprehension questions related to the holiday traditions. As well as one final great addition where students go back to the text to find the focus words, again.
Bonus Activities for the Holidays Around the World Worksheets:
After reading the passages, you can have the whole class discuss different Christmas traditions and other holiday traditions that students may have. Students will learn about different parts of the world as they focus on a possible different holiday tradition than their own. These are a great addition to include in your lesson plans around Christmas time. There are so many special days celebrated around the world and these holidays around the world worksheets are such a fun way for students to learn about world holiday celebrations. Students may even be encouraged to try something new with their own family during the holiday season.
If time allows, you can also have students color the pictures on each of the holidays around the world worksheets. Students can try and match the colors used to what they’ve learned about each of the different holidays in each passage. If you’re also focusing on these different holidays in your social studies lessons, students will likely have learned enough fun facts to make their pictures authentic looking when considering the different traditions. These holidays around the world resources will keep your students occupied for an extended time period at a time when kids are easily distracted!
Holidays Around the World Worksheets
These holidays around the world printables are passages that will allow your Kindergarten students, 1st grade, or 2nd grade students to learn about world cultures and holiday celebrations as they read through through the holidays around the world worksheets. They will see what different holiday fun occurs at this time of year in different traditions. Since the goal is for students to decode the words and read the passages on their own, the sentences are simple, but provide a little bit of information about the different holidays from different cultures. These holidays around the world worksheets pair great with reading aloud picture books, or other classroom activities, about each holiday from around the world.
Low Prep!
All you have to do is print out the different holidays around the world worksheets and make copies for all your students. You can then have students complete each page in small groups, during independent work time, or even send these home for reading practice. Students will easily be able to follow the format of each passage, after they do their first one. You can choose which order to go in to learn about the different holidays around the world, as most occur between November and February, with many in December itself.
With two passages included for each of the 9 holidays in this resource, you’ll be set with passages for quite a few weeks. As students make their way through the 18 passages, you’ll notice their confidence building as they decode words and learn new vocabulary specific to different holidays. The encouraging statements included along the way on each of the holidays around the world worksheets make readers proud of their reading accomplishments.
Increase Engagement
While the weeks leading up to winter break can be very challenging due to kids being ready for the holidays, you can make the most of that time with these holidays around the world worksheets! Engagement will be up with little work on your part in prepping the holidays around the world printables.
If you want to explore more holidays throughout the school year, check out my Holidays Reading Passages bundle! You’ll have passages for nearly every month of the school year. The bundle includes all of these holidays for young learners: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Holidays Around the World, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day, and Easter. Your little readers will be focused on reading about different holidays all year.
You can read more about these Holidays Around the World worksheets in this blog post.
Free Printables Christmas Theme
I have some free printable Christmas resources to share with you as well. You can first try out some free samples of these holidays around the world worksheets by grabbing these free Christmas passages. Read all about the free Christmas celebrations passages!
I also have another set of free activities for the Christmas season. Check out my free Christmas Phonics Games and Fluency Activities that are great to use as the days lead up to winter break. These free printable activities are great for Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. All these free resources work great in small groups as fun Christmas themed activities!
