Junior Kindergarten Celebration Investigators

Junior Kindergarteners went on an exciting inquiry to explore diversity through celebrations. On this journey, students developed new knowledge of celebrations and deepened their understanding of familiar customs. With an open-mind, students appreciated their own cultures and personal identities while valuing the perspectives and traditions of their friends and the school community.

Our inquiry on Celebrations Around the World was inspired by students who introduced the celebration of Hanukkah to our class in November. During our sharing circle, many students wondered “What does it mean to celebrate?” and “what is a celebration?” This sparked our curiosity to learn about the traditions associated with these events. Our inquiry began with students recording their ideas in the form of drawings demonstrating how much and little they know about the topic.

Sharing Stories of Celebration, Tradition and Symbols

Students all had different ideas of what a celebration looks like, sounds like, and feels like. To learn more, students invited parents to visit kindergarten and share stories about their own traditions. Students embraced the opportunity to learn something about their culture from their parents. This helped each student value his own family history.

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Halloween was a special celebration to me. I go trick or treating to get the candy.

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This is my birthday. My dad is hugging me. There are so many balloons.

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Christmas was a celebration special to me with my mom. There is a Christmas tree.

Exploring Diversity and Making Connections Between Celebrations

With our new knowledge, we drew a picture of something we learned using the 5 W's and organized symbols connected with various traditions on a pictogram. We noticed patterns and appreciated the similarities and differences between celebrations. Through our reflection, we concluded that celebrations often have a lot of people, lights, gifts, unique traditions and special foods.

Sharing Stories

"The Menorah for Hanukkah and birthday cake both have candles because it is a celebration. Happy birthday candles you blow it out in one day on your birthday. On Hanukkah you blow it out after 8 days." - Oliver

Sharing Stories

"The Diya and birthday candles are the same. They both have lights. Celebration likes lights because people like them when they celebrate Diwali and birthday." - Hudson

Sharing Stories

"I see Hanukkah and Christmas both give gifts to your family because they like surprises and it shows you love them. In Hanukkah, you give the gift of dreidel and gelt, but for Christmas you give gifts that the people like." - Mateo

Sharing Stories

I learned about the dancing dragon. It is the Lunar New Year. People use the dragon to welcome the New Year and bring good luck.

Sharing Stories

My friend and I are making a big rangoli on the grass in the morning. We are celebrating Diwali, the Festival of Lights because it has lots of lights and beautiful flower patterns.

Sharing Stories

I learned about Hanukkah. I learned about driedals that people play with by spinning them and getting gelts.

How do you Welcome the New Year?

After winter break we continued our inquiry and discovered many symbols and traditions to welcome the New Year. We noticed that various cultures celebrate the New Year at different times and with unique customs. Many Indian people celebrate Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights. We learned that celebrating Diwali includes displaying colourful decorations at the door for good luck. Students were captivated by the colourful displays and their interest led them to design their own rangolis and diyas to put outside our classroom door so our JK family could have good luck in the New Year too!

A family feast is often included in celebrations. Lunar New Year feasts often have dumplings and noodles for good health and happiness and dumplings are a favourite in our JK class. Students who were celebrating Lunar New Year shared how to say Jiaozi and Tang Yuan which means dumplings and rice balls. We wondered, “What is a dumpling? " and investigated this question by looking closely at all the different types of dumplings we eat. We found that dumplings are dough with filling wrapped inside.

Another tradition we noticed around us was setting New Year’s Resolutions. Reading “Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution” led us to think about our own goals for 2024. We brainstormed things we don’t know how to do or want to be better at as a class. Then we thought about a way we could achieve this. Here are our New Year's Resolutions and action plans to achieve these goals!

As part of our emergent curriculum in Junior Kindergarten, we advocate for students’ agency. Kindergarteners are active learners and we strive to help them make intentional choices in their learning. In this inquiry, students enriched their own knowledge by applying their learning to making meaningful connections between celebrations. Students were able to appreciate the diverse communities and personal histories around us. Most of all, we developed a love for learning and the importance of learning from each other.

Article by Jennifer Chan and Alexandra Prosperi, Junior Kindergarten Homeroom Teachers