Once Thanksgiving is over and the calendar flips to December, many
well-meaning schools, teachers, and librarians will start preparing their
lesson plans to teach their Christmas Around the World units. There is
nothing inherently wrong with teaching a Christmas Around the World unit, but
I get irked when I see teachers and staff using bulletin board displays,
storybooks, and worksheets that depict cartoony children with big goofy smiles
and dressed in stereotypical cultural clothes. Instead, I prefer to see
books, drawings, and resources that depict real children engaged in authentic
activities and traditions.
A World of Cookies for Santa: Follow Santa's Tasty Trip Around the World by M.E. Furman does a good job of teaching us about Christmas around
the world without having to resort to cartoony stereotypes. The children
in A World of Cookies live in various countries around the
world and they set Christmas cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve.
Each cookie is delicious and unique to the country it comes from. At the
end of the book, the author includes recipes for each of the cookies for you
to try on your own. Read on to learn more about A World of Cookies and about ways you can integrate it into the lessons you teach.
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About A World of Cookies for Santa
🍎 Author's Summary: A World of Cookies for Santa takes readers across the globe to see all the treats that await Santa on Christmas Eve. Head to the Philippines, where children leave out puto seko cookies and ginger tea for Santa; jet to Russia for a honey-spice cookie; then set out for Malawi for a sweet potato cookie! When you've returned home, the journey's still not over—M. E. Furman provides recipes for children to bake some of Santa's cookies for themselves. A World of Cookies for Santa is a multicultural celebration that families will return to year after year.
🍎 Title: A World of Cookies for Santa: Follow Santa's Tasty Trip Around the
World
🍎 Author: M.E. Furman
🍎 Illustrator: Susan Gal
🍎 Date: October 17, 2017
🍎 Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
🍎 Pages: 48
🍎 Author: M.E. Furman
🍎 Illustrator: Susan Gal
🍎 Date: October 17, 2017
🍎 Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
🍎 Pages: 48
What Are Traditions?
A World of Cookies for Santa is about children who live around
the world and leave some of their country's traditional cookies out for
Santa. Depending on the age of your students, you may need to do a
quick mini-lesson about traditions. What are traditions? What
are some examples of holiday traditions you follow at home?
A tradition is the handing down of information, beliefs, or customs from
one generation to another.
Reading the Story
A World of Cookies for Santa is a non-fiction book students can
read to learn specific information. Each page follows the same
format. We learn the name of a country, what Santa is called there,
one type of Christmas cookie from that country, and an interesting fact or
two. This format lends itself well to introducing kid-friendly
research projects to your students. Before Christmas, read and
discuss A World of Cookies for Santa with your students to
learn a little bit about the countries in the book. Then after
Christmas, revisit it. Have each student select one of the countries
from the book to research. What country did they choose? Where
is it located? What is its capital? What is its
population? Language? Culture? Traditions? Any other
interesting details we should know about?
Geography
Santa has to visit a lot of countries in A World of Cookies for Santa. He visits countries on every continent not counting
Antarctica. Pull out a world map and try to find each of the countries
Santa visits on the map. Does he visit your country? Can you
track the route Santa took in the book? Can you come up with a better
route? What are some interesting land and water features Santa will
fly over? If you are really ambitious you could take a globe, some
clear tape, and yarn to trace Santa's route.
Note: Be prepared... this happens to me every year... whenever
my students and I look at world maps prior to Christmas, one of my littles
will always look at the North Pole, see that there is no land at the North
Pole, and panic. How can Santa's workshop be real if the North Pole is
in the middle of the Arctic Ocean??? My response... sea ice...
Santa's workshop is built on sea ice. That usually satisfies
them.
My Grandma's Christmas Cookie Recipe
In the back of A World of Cookies for Santa, you will find
recipes for each of the cookies in the book. These are authentic
recipes that you can make at home or at school with your students.
Yum! A few years ago I participated in
a virtual cookie recipe exchange
with some of my online friends. Reading A World of Cookies for Santa reminded me of the recipe I typed up and shared with them. It's
the recipe for my grandmother's Mexican chocolate cookies that I posted
below. These cookies are best served warm and with a glass of cold
milk.
What about you? Do you have a favorite Christmas cookie you like to
bake with your family? Do you leave out special cookies for Santa on
Christmas Eve? Tell us about them in the comments below!
Did you enjoy reading this post about A World of Cookies for Santa?
If so check out these blog posts for more Christmas books and crafts:
- Craft: How to Make a Milk Carton Gingerbread House Christmas Craft
- Craft: How to Make Cinnamon Scented Christmas Ornaments Christmas Craft
- Book: The Saint Nicholas Day Snow by Charlotte Riggle
- Book List: 10 Quirky Corona Christmas Books
- STEM: Hot Chocolate Surprise + STEM Activity
- Craft: How to Make a Macaroni Christmas Wreath
This book looks so good! I’m definitely adding it to the list of Christmas books I get my daughter this year.
ReplyDeleteThis book looks like so much fun, with recipes too! I am going to look out for this...
ReplyDelete