Level 1: Activity 1

How do customs and traditions begin and why do they continue?

Thumbs up!

Talk about the thumbs up/ thumbs down sign with your class. Decide on some great expressions to go with each sign - like huge smiles or big sad faces. Call out "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" while the children in pairs, mirror their partner's sign and expression.

Now call the names of the celebrations and activities below. The children can decide whether each one should get a "thumbs up", or a "thumbs down". Display the words and on flash cards as you read each one out.

• Birthdays
• Easter eggs
• Frosty fingers
• Christmas eve
• Guy Fawkes
• Christmas morning
• Summer holidays
• Halloween
• New Years Eve
• The day after your birthday
• First day of the new school year
• First swim for the summer
• Wrapping up presents
• Unwrapping presents
• Blowing out candles
• Sand flies
• Twinkling lights
• Saturday mornings
• Movies
• Biting a lemon
• Birthday cake

Discuss what a celebration is. Together decide which of the things you called out are celebrations or a part of celebrations. Decide whether all the celebrations were thumbs up, smiley type things.

A celebration mural

Get the students to pick a celebration they love and draw the part that they think is the best part. Cut and glue your celebration pictures to create a celebration mural. Together decide on some celebration words you can scatter on your mural. Children can add new words as the unit continues.

Level 1: Activity 2

How celebrations and festivals have come to New Zealand from other places.

Examples:

• Valentines Day
• Thanksgiving
• Children's Day
• Halloween
• Guy Fawkes
• Diwali
• Christmas
• Easter
• Olympic Games
• Hanukkah
• Ramadan
• Dragon Boat Festival
• White Sunday
• Highland Games
• St Patrick's Day
• Bar and Bat Mitzvah
• Birthdays
• Wedding traditions

Image match

Choose some celebrations from the list above or ones that reflect the cultures of your class and community.

Gather and print a selection of celebration images that represent each of the celebrations you choose. Make a set of celebration flash cards for the image collection that name each celebration and its country of origin.

Seat your class in a circle and place your photos and flash cards inside the circle. Display a map of the world inside the circle too.

The children can have turns at trying to match each image to a flash card and justifying their choice.

Discuss these things in class as children try to match the cards to images:

• What do the images tell us about what happens in each celebration?
• Are there any clues that tell us which country the celebration might have started in?
• Do people in New Zealand take part in this celebration?

If it is decided that this celebration is part of New Zealand life the children can slide the card and its image from its home country to New Zealand. Talk about how these celebrations came here.

Level 1: Activity 3

How the same celebrations can be enjoyed in different ways.

Our way

In class talk about the word "custom". What does it mean? What is a custom that some people take part in at Christmas time? What is a custom that some people do on their birthday?

In groups of four get the children to choose the one celebration they know most about. It might be birthdays or Christmas.

Now they must choose the one thing they like best about that celebration. It might be presents, food, or even late nights. Get them to print this on a big piece of card and put it in the centre of their circle.

Get each person to tell the rest of the group how they celebrate this custom at their place. For example if the best thing about Christmas is presents, the children in turn explain when and how they get theirs.

One stay, three stray

One person stays in their group (holding their big piece of card) while the three other group members stray to three other groups. The cardholder then tells the three new visitors what he/she has found out.

The visitors might be able to report back too.

As a class decide if there are different ways to celebrate the same occasion. See if anyone or a group can come up with a way of celebrating birthdays that no one has ever thought of.

Level 1: Activity 4

How did the customs and traditions of the Lantern Festival begin?

Become a storyteller

As a class look at photos from earlier Lantern Festivals and ask:

• "What are some of the things that are the same or nearly the same in all the photos?"
• "Are any of the things you see happening a little bit like celebrations that you know?"
• "What would be a good name for this celebration?"
• "Do you think this celebration started in New Zealand or has it come from somewhere else?"

Discuss with the class how a celebration they know all about, began. For example, Christmas or Guy Fawkes. In groups of three the students can decide how the Lantern Festival celebration might have begun. Share the ideas in class.

Become a storyteller and tell this story. It's one story that tells how the Lantern Festival began.

Prepare question cards like these and give one card to every group of three. Tell the children that they will hear the story again but this time in groups of three they must listen very carefully for the answer to the question that is on their card. Get one person in each group to read out their question before you begin.

Tell the story and then share the answers to the questions in class after each group has had time to consider them.

Show in a paper scroll

Each group now works out a way that they could show their answer as a picture.

Give each group a long piece of cartridge paper (40cm long and 10cm wide) and two crayons or pastels in the traditional colours of red and black. They design their picture, dye it with red dye and mount their picture between two pieces of bamboo. Attach a string to the top bamboo to hang their paper scroll from.

Display the paper scrolls with captions underneath.

Level 1: Activity 5

The Lantern Festival is all about people having fun. What customs and traditions add fun to the Lantern Festivals today?

Lights and lanterns

The lanterns themselves add fun! Display this family's lanterns first.

As a class share the names of some cartoon characters that would make great lanterns. Vote for a class "high five" list of favourite cartoon lanterns to take to the Lantern Festival.

Show these fish lanterns. Ask some "What ifs?" For example:

• What if we made the biggest fish lantern of all? What fish would we make?
• What if we wanted to make a strange, funny looking fish lantern? What fish would we make?
• What if we wanted to make a happy shark lantern? What parts could we light up with bright lights to show it is a laughing smiley shark?

Talk about how many of the lanterns come from stories like the one we have heard. Tell the class this Lantern Festival story An Emperor called Jade. It's another version that tells of the origins of the Lantern Festival.

Get the children to decide in groups of three what sort of lantern they would make that could show a part of this story. Gather the ideas together and then look at this photo. It's spectacular!

Look at this dragon lantern. Together decide why the dragon might be part of the Lantern Festival and make up a three lined simple poem. Display it with the photo or crayon and dye a big class dragon of your own.

Fine food

Yuanxiao is the name of the Lantern Festival and Yuanxiao was the palace maid that made the sweet dumplings that so pleased the fire god. The dumplings themselves are called Yuanxiao or Tangyuan and the filling inside can be sweet or salty. Yuanxiao is sticky, sweet and round in shape, symbolizing family unity, completeness and happiness.

Look here for a recipe for Yuanxiao and make it in class. Look at these Yuanxiao dumplings and make wrappings using red cellophane and ribbons. The children could then design their own labels for their dumplings. They may be able to show family unity through their designs. A family of happy faces would be a simple example.