How To Teach About Family Holiday Traditions In The Classroom

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season in the classroom is hearing about all of the different traditions my students have with their families. From special foods they eat to places they visit or activities they do every year, every family has something different to share!

Teaching about family traditions is also such a meaningful way to build classroom community during the holiday season. Students get the chance to share something that is special to them while learning more about their classmates and the traditions that are important to their families.

If you’re looking for a simple way to teach about family holiday traditions in kindergarten or first grade, I’m sharing how I introduce traditions, get families involved, and turn it into a meaningful speaking and writing activity.

Start by Teaching What a Tradition Is

Before asking students to share their own family traditions, I like to make sure they understand what a tradition actually is.

I explain that a tradition is something a family does again and again that is special to them. Then, we brainstorm a few examples together.

I might ask:

• Is there a special food your family makes every year?
• Do you visit someone or somewhere special?
• Is there something you always do together during the holidays?
• Do you have a special song, movie, game, or activity that your family enjoys?

I also remind students that every family’s traditions are different—and that’s what makes this lesson so much fun! Some traditions may be connected to a holiday, while others might simply be something a family enjoys doing together each year.

Once we’ve talked through a few examples, I love using Olaf’s Frozen Adventure as a fun connection. The short is all about Olaf trying to learn about different family traditions, which makes it an easy way for young students to connect the idea of a tradition to something familiar.

You can watch the song “That Time of Year“ from Olaf’s Frozen Adventure on YouTube or watch the full short on Disney+.

Afterward, we talk about some of the traditions we noticed and add a few more ideas to our discussion. By this point, students are usually starting to think of traditions from their own families—which leads perfectly into the next part of the lesson!

Have Students Learn About Their Family Traditions

Even after talking about lots of examples, young students may not immediately recognize the things they do at home as traditions. Sending this part of the lesson home gives them a chance to talk with their families and learn a little more about the traditions that are special to them.

I use a Holiday Traditions Take-Home Project to guide that conversation. Students work with their families to share some of their favorite holiday traditions, including special foods, songs, and activities. Families can also send in a photograph for their child to share with the class.

I especially love this part because students often come back so excited to tell us something they learned about their own family!

If you’d like to try this with your class, you can grab my FREE Holiday Traditions Take-Home Project below and have it sent straight to your inbox.

Share Family Traditions With the Class

Once the projects come back to school, it’s time for one of my favorite parts: sharing!

Students take turns coming up to the class to share what they learned about their family’s traditions. Depending on what they included in their project, they might tell us about a favorite food, a song they listen to, an activity they do together, or another tradition that is special to their family.

If students bring in a photograph, they can use that during their share, too. It turns into a simple holiday traditions show-and-tell, and my students always love getting a little glimpse into their classmates’ lives outside of school.

As each student shares, I add their tradition to our Snow Globe Traditions anchor chart. By the end, we have a visual showing all of the different traditions represented in our classroom.

This is also a great opportunity to talk about what students notice. Are there traditions that are similar? Which ones are different? Did anyone hear about a tradition that was new to them?

The goal isn’t for every student to celebrate the same things. It’s for students to see that families can have different traditions while still finding plenty of things they have in common.

And once students have spent time talking about their traditions, they have plenty of ideas to take into writing!

Turn Family Traditions Into a Writing Activity

After students have talked about their family traditions at home and shared them with the class, they are ready to write about them!

One of the things I love about doing the take-home project first is that students aren’t starting with a blank page. They’ve already talked about their traditions with their families, heard examples from their classmates, and shared their own ideas aloud. For young writers, all of that conversation makes it much easier to decide what they want to write about.

Students can choose one tradition that is special to them and write about what they do, who they do it with, and why it is special.

If you want to turn their writing into a December display, my Holiday & Winter Traditions Writing Craft takes students from brainstorming all the way through their finished writing. It includes a Google Slides mini-lesson to introduce traditions, brainstorming pages for prewriting, differentiated writing options, and a snow globe craft.

Once they’re finished, the snow globes can be displayed with the included Our Holiday Traditions or Our Winter Traditions bulletin board letters. I love that every student’s project looks a little different because the writing inside shares something about their own family.

Create a Class Book About Family Traditions

Another option is to turn your students’ writing into a class book!

With the Holiday & Winter Traditions Class Book, students start by organizing their ideas with a pre-writing planner and then choose a writing prompt that works for them. They can write about a family, holiday, or winter tradition, a tradition they will always remember, or even a new tradition they would like to start.

The writing pages are differentiated, with handwriting lines for younger writers and regular lines for students who are ready for them. Once everyone has written and illustrated a page, you can put them together to create a book written by your class.

I love adding student-created books to the classroom library. There’s something extra exciting about picking up a book and seeing your own name and writing inside! This one also gives students another opportunity to read about the traditions their classmates shared.

You can even add a Meet the Authors page with student photos or self-portraits and give students an author certificate when the book is complete. It would be such a fun way to wrap up the writing project or have a little publishing celebration!

Celebrating Family Traditions in the Classroom

Teaching about family traditions doesn’t have to mean trying to teach your students about every holiday or celebration. Instead, you can give students the opportunity to be the experts on their own families.

By starting with a simple discussion, involving families with the take-home project, giving students time to share, and extending those ideas into writing, you’re creating an opportunity for students to learn more about one another while practicing important speaking, listening, and writing skills.

And in a busy December classroom, it’s one of those activities that can feel festive while still giving students meaningful opportunities to learn.

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Planning a family traditions lesson for the holiday season? Save this post on Pinterest so you can come back to these holiday and winter traditions activities for Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade when you’re working on your December lesson plans!