Teaching about American Christmas

Out of the 5 American holidays i decided to teach about this school year, Christmas was the 3rd/5 (I already taught about Halloween and Thanksgiving, and next will teach about Valentine's Day and American Easter).

In the beginning of the lesson i did a comparison with the kids about the similarities and differences between Moldovan and American Christmas traditions. I handed out a worksheet with 20 sentences and together we read through the list and wrote an "M" if it was Moldovan, "A" for American, and "MA" for both.

Here's the list:

1) Christmas is celebrated to honor the birth of Christ. "MA"

2) Christmas is celebrated on two dates: December 25 and January 7. "M"

(Due to strict Soviet restrictions of celebrating religious holidays, Soviet countries started secretly celebrating Christmas on January 7. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, January 7 (aka "Old" or "2nd" Christmas) is still recognized as Christmas, especially to the older generations who lived through the old Soviet times. December 25 is aka "New" or "1st" Christmas. Not all Moldovans celebrate both Christmases - it's usually one or the other.)

3) Santa leaves gifts under the Christmas tree. "MA"

4) Santa gets into the house to deliver presents by going down the chimney. "A"

5) People fast from animal products for 6 weeks before Christmas. "M"

(Not all Moldovans fast before Christmas, only the very religiously devout usually.)

6) Christmas is only celebrated on December 25, but Christmas Eve (December 24) is a special night of feasting and opening of a gift for some families. "A"

7) The Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving and lasts through December 31. "A"

8) Christmas carols are sung door to door, mostly by children who receive candy and money from the homeowners. "M"

("Colindă" or "Christmas Caroling" happens at least 4 separate days - 1st New Year's Eve (Dec 31), Old Christmas (Jan 7), Old New Year's Eve (Jan 13), and Old New Year's (Jan 14). It reminds me a lot of Trick-or-Treating in The States because kids dress up in masks and robes, go door-to-door, and instead of saying "Trick-or-Treat!" the sing traditional Moldovan Christmas carols and receive candy and money in their sacks.)

9) Children write letters to Santa Claus. "MA"

10) People go to church. "MA"

11) The Christmas season usually starts on December 31 with the decorating of the Christmas tree ("bradul Crăciun") and lasts until January 15 (the day after "Old" New Year's). "M"

12) Christmas carols are sung door-to-door, mostly by adults, who do not receive candy or money - they just do it to spread Christmas joy. "A"

13) Mulled wine and champagne are popular during the Christmas season. "MA"

14) Another name for Santa Claus is "Ded Moroz". "M"

(Apparently this is more of a Russian thing, it means "Father Winter".)

15) The Christmas tree is decorated usually in early December. "A"

16) Popular foods at Christmastime are eggnog, peppermint, chocolate, cookies, candy canes, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and gingerbread. "A"

(In Moldova, especially after fasting from animal products for 6 weeks, it is common for Moldovans to kill and eat a pig at Christmas, breaking the fast.)

17) If the children are naughty, they get coal in their stockings. "A"

18) On St. Nicholas' Day (Dec 6 or Dec 19, depending on the locality), children leave clean shoes or boots at the door or window to get small gifts from Santa Claus. "M"

(Moldovans are extremely strict about clean shoes.)

19) The Christmas tree is usually decorated on December 31, the night that Santa Claus leaves small gifts underneath it for children to find on the morning of January 1st. "M"

(It is common for children to sleep next to the bradul Crăciun to try to see Santa leaving their gifts.)

20) The children leave milk and cookies near the Christmas tree for Santa. "A"

After i taught them about the traditions of an American Christmas, i had them trace and cut out their hands on green paper that i made into a Christmas tree (my 9th grade class is missing because they didn't come to class that day, so the tree is smaller than i had hoped). Then i gave them pre-cut round ornaments to decorate, to decorate the tree with. 

The drawings i added around the tree (including the star at the top) were from the review game i made „Calea Curcubeului: Crăciun ediție” (The Way of the Rainbow: Christmas edition).

boli netransmisibile

For my boli netransmisibile (noncummunicable diseases) unit, i taught about diabetul (diabetes), boli de inimă - arterioscleroză (heart disease - arterosclerosis), and BPOC - boli pulmonare obstructive cronice (CPODs - Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases).

Below are some of the posters i made for the lessons - diabetul:

Boli de inimă:

BPOC:

igienă personală

The next chapter i'm teaching about in my health class is about personal hygiene - hand washing, teeth brushing, bathing, clothes washing, room cleaning, etc. So to kick it off i created an introduction lesson which gave a brief overview of all the above mentioned stuff. Then i presented Ștefan. 

(Quick back story: Ștefan Cel Mare, aka, ”Ștefan the Great” was prince of Moldova for 47 years between 1457 and 1504. During his reign he fought against the Ottoman Empire, Poland, and Hungary. Because of his dedication to protecting his country, he is considered a hero in Moldova and his statues, face, and name are EVERYWHERE.)

So, back to the story...Ștefan is a little boy who admires Ștefan Cel Mare and wants to grow up to be just like him. But 1st he needs help with his personal hygiene...

From there the students removed the dirty parts accompanied by the items needed to clean those dirty parts and placed them on a table i drew next to the poster that was separated into columns for how often those dirty parts need to be cleaned - several times a day, daily, several times a week, weekly, several times a month, or monthly. 

All the classes really enjoyed this activity. My 5th and 6th grade classes were even good and cooperative! Which was kinda funny and cute ;op

Here's Ștefan after he was all cleaned up!

To wrap up the lesson i did a word search, which they also LOVED! 

They took turns coming to the front of the class where i gave them a sentence to read with a missing word that they had to find in the puzzle. It ended up being another great activity! 

YAY for awesome FUN lessons!!! ...Now if i can just keep em coming... ;op

Elevii teach class!

Vacanță de toamnă is from Monday - Wednesday, so since I only had half of my classes that week, my clasa 9 homework assignment for that short week was that they were to teach the class. I was just hoping that at least 1 student prepared something, but they were actually pretty excited about it and i was impressed by the work they put into it (especially on their school break!)!

Above is Victor. He definitely put the most time and effort into his teaching. He drew and color-coded a skull and labeled all the parts. He even included classroom participation by handing out the labels and their functions separately so that the class had to guess where they belonged on the skull. I was flattered that he did that cuz that's exactly what i did for their digestive system class! It made me feel like they hopefully enjoy my classes and have fun with the activities and learn at least something :o] Thanks Victor! It was awesome!!!

I hung his cool diagram on the wall next to the digestive system diagram.

Next up was Victoria. She taught a lesson on ochii (eyes). She came prepared with detailed print outs of eye diagrams, which was also pretty cool...sorry, no pictures of that though. Thanks Victoria!

Tatiana was next. She taught about the nutrition of "favorite foods". Thanks Tatiana!

Finally Adriana and Mihaela taught about exerciții fizice (exercise). Thanks!

Overall, it ended up being a better idea than i originally thought to have them teach the class! I'm glad it worked out so great!

sistemul digestiv

This was a fun activity to teach about the digestive system! I cut out the names of the organs and their descriptions separately. I handed them all out and the students placed them on the diagram where they thought they belonged. Then my partner and i taught the lesson and at the end we asked if all the labels were correct. When the students realized they weren't, they corrected them. After that i gave them a blank poster and blank cut-outs of all the organs. As a class they colored the organs, glued them in their correct places on the poster, and correctly labeled it. Then we hung up their "masterpiece" in the class to show it off! :o]

...and saying words like "rect, anus, and fecale" wasn't as bad as i'd imagined it would be with middle-schoolers ;op