PLF Reflections

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Three Tips: Inclusive Holiday Celebrations

Tip One: Celebrate the Spirit, Not Just the Traditions
Focus on universal values like kindness, generosity, and community rather than specific holidays. This approach allows students from all cultural and religious backgrounds to participate meaningfully. Activities like hosting a "Season of Giving" charity drive or creating classroom projects centered on gratitude can foster inclusivity without centering on one particular tradition. Practical tip: Reach out to community centers to see if there are ways to support. For example, food drives, blanket making, toy drives.

Tip Two: Incorporate Cultural Learning Opportunities
Use the holiday season as a chance to educate students about different cultural and religious celebrations around the world. Consider hosting a “Holidays Around the World” event where families can share their traditions or incorporating books and activities into your curriculum that highlight various practices like Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali, and more. This promotes curiosity and respect for diversity. Here are two videos to help: 12 Winter Holidays from Around the World or Winter Holidays Around the World

Tip Three: Design Inclusive Celebrations for Everyone
Design holiday activities that focus on common values like community, creativity, and fun without being tied to specific traditions. For example, host a winter-themed event that includes activities like building gingerbread houses, crafting snowflakes, or storytelling sessions about winter in different cultures. These inclusive celebrations ensure all students can participate without feeling left out or singled out for their beliefs or lack of celebration.

If you’d like to read about the importance of inclusive celebrations further, we would recommend this article by Dr. Scott McLeod titled Secular v. sectarian Christmas displays: What is the obligation of public schools to be welcoming?

Two Resources to Support You!

One Celebration

We have had a good run with our previous logo, but decided recently it was time to really make our logo our own. So, behold our amazing new logo and color scheme, that looks like it might be a younger sister version to our last logo! Hopefully, you can see the embedded “e” and “m”. Let us know what you think! You’ll find that the logo will be showing up all over our website and social media channels!

Extra Credit Tip

We know that any discount can help when buying as an educator! When possible, we will put extra credit tips/discounts right here in the newsletter. Now, we are just the messenger, so if a discount dissolves without our knowledge we bare no responsibility nor do we receive anything for sharing these discounts. This newsletter’s feature:

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