How to Teach Elementary Students About Kwanzaa
African American Language Arts and Social Studies Lesson Plan
Nov 4, 2008
Kwanzaa is a great opportunity for elementary teachers to teach students about African American history, customs, and culture. The Story of Kwanzaa by Donna L. Washington [Harper Collins, 1996] can be used by teachers to explain the holiday of Kwanzaa and its significance to students.
Teachers can teach a Kwanzaa themed lesson in conjunction with other winter holidays or as part of a unit on African American history.
Elementary Kwanzaa Lesson Plan Objective
Students will write and answer teacher-like questions about the holiday of Kwanzaa based on the book The Story of Kwanzaa by Donna L. Washington.
Elementary Kwanzaa Lesson Plan Materials
- The Story of Kwanzaa by Donna L. Washington
- Art supplies such as construction paper and markers
- Benne cakes (recipe in The Story of Kwanzaa)
- Cow Tail Switch supplies (details in The Story of Kwanzaa)
How to Introduce the Holiday of Kwanzaa to Primary Students
Teachers can begin the Kwanzza Social Studies and Language Arts lesson by asking the class who know what Kwanzaa is, who celebrates Kwanzaa, and what they do to celebrate it. The teacher can pass around benne cakes (recipe in The Story of Kwanzaa) for the students to sample and show the story book to the class.
Read The Story of Kwanzaa by Donna L. Washington
The teacher uses the Reciprocal Teaching strategy to read the book with the class. Students use the pictures in the book and the introductory class discussion to predict what they think the book will be about.
As the class reads, students will generate teacher-like questions about Kwanzaa from the information in the book. The teacher will record these questions on chart paper.
After the book is completed the teacher will write the question, “What is Kwanzaa?” on the board. She will guide students to come up with a summary of the book to answer the question.
Create a Kwanzaa Fact Bulletin Board Game
The students will use their new Kwanzaa knowledge to create a Kwanzaa Fact Game on a bulletin board outside of the classroom. The students use the teacher-like questions they came up with during the story to make an interactive trivia game that other students and teachers in the school can use.
The bulletin board can be decorated with read, green and black to represent the colors of Kwanzaa. The students can fold rectangles of construction paper in half and write a Kwanzaa question on the front of the fold. They then lift up the folded paper and write the answer underneath.
The questions are then stapled or tacked to the bulletin board. The question, “What is Kwanzaa?” is placed above the Kwanzaa questions. The summary the students generated to answer the question is written below the questions.
Make a Kwanzaa Cow Tail Switch Craft
After the bulletin board is finished students can use the directions at the end of the story to make a Kwanzaa craft. Donna L. Washington has included an explanation of the significance of the cow tail switch in her book, The Story of Kwanzaa, along with step by step instructions of how to make one.
Primary teachers can teach students about the African American celebration of Kwanzaa during a Social Studies and Language Arts lesson. Students can use the information in The Story of Kwanzaa to create a Kwanzaa Fact Game bulletin board and to make a cow tail switch Kwanzaa craft.
