1. Christmas Around The World
Unit Portfolio Presentation
Susan Brookshire

2. Unit Summary
“It’s a small world after all” as the song says! Take a trip around the world with us to discover from where we get some of our “American” Christmas customs and traditions. Students will interview family members and then research Christmas customs from other cultures and countries from around the world to discover the origin of common American Christmas customs. These will be presented and shared with the class orally and through simple power point presentations, video recordings using flip cameras, writing artifacts, KWL’s, Venn Diagrams, and art projects.

3. Curriculum-Framing Questions
Essential Question How do people celebrate Christmas?
Unit Questions How are my family’s Christmas customs alike and different from those of families in other countries/cultures? What customs does my family observe that come from other countries/cultures?
Content Questions What Christmas customs celebrated in America do we get from other countries/cultures? Do most countries have someone who is a gift bearer like our Santa Claus who delivers gifts to children?

4. Christmas Around the World Project
This project will help my students develop 21st century skills by:
Communicating and Collaborating with peers.
Creativity and Innovation in Presenting Ideas
Use of Information, Media, and Technology Skills for research and presentations
Use of Life and Career Skills in working together with others to complete the project, i.e. adaptability, flexibility, pacing, initiative, leadership, appreciation of cultural differences, global learners, cross-cultural skills, accountability, responsibility, etc.

5. Gauging Student Needs Assessment
Purpose of the Assessment
To gather information about what students already know and what they wonder about Christmas customs/traditions.
What I want to learn from my students?
I want to find out what they already know about the Unit Questions, what they know about customs and traditions in general, and how people celebrate Christmas.
How I have tried to promote higher-order thinking?
I ask students to find relationships and draw conclusions by comparing and contrasting similarities and differences between the ways their families celebrate Christmas and families in other countries/cultures celebrate Christmas.
How the assessment information helps me and my students plan for upcoming activities in the unit?
The initial KWL helps me gauge what my students know, as well as guides me in utilizing their interests to engage them in learning. On-going assessments throughout the unit provide insight into students’ levels of understanding about what we are learning enabling me to provide various resources and levels of scaffolding and support as needed and adjust planning as needed.
What feedback or additional ideas I’d like?
Ways to further elicit more higher-order thinking, and differentiate even more for higher level learners.

6. My Goals for the Course
Find ways to get my students more interested in learning more about other cultures and countries
Learn about different kinds of technology my students and I can use
Develop more global awareness and more cultural tolerance, acceptance, and understanding of other cultures, countries, and people and their customs and traditions

7. Goals for My Students
To learn how customs and traditions are started and passed down from generation to generation, as well as spread from country to country
To become more independent learners
To become more curious about how they and their families are alike and different from those in their own community, as well as people in other communities, countries and cultures

8. Request for Feedback
Global classrooms in different states and/or countries I could link with for my students to communicate with, share with, and learn from.
Ideas for helping students take more responsibility for their own learning, thus becoming even more independent learners and lifelong learners.
Ideas to make time to make all this happen!