Christmas Around the World

I'm excited to start preparation for the our Christmas around the world lesson plans.  I'm only going to door three countries, and then the week before Christmas focus in the United States.  I've decided to go with Italy, Israel and Mexico because I found them the interesting and think my son will enjoy learning about their traditions.

So how do you go about making a Christmas Around the World Lesson Plan without spending a lot of money?  First, as always, start with google.  :)  This was a good site to get the ball rolling: 

http://www.santas.net/
 
First, I'm going to get three brown paper bags (old Whole Food bags) and decorate them with the flags of the country that we'll be focusing on for the lesson.  My son will get to open up the bag and inside will be the items I want to highlight.  So for Italy, I decided to focus on the Urn of Fate and Befana, the kind witch.   I'll use a regular kitchen mixing bowl for the Urn and while it'd be cool to have some sort toy witch (you may have one, although I don't think we do) I may just have to print out a picture and paste it on a Popsicle stick and use it as a puppet.  We'll go over the traditions and he'll pick something from the Urn of Fate.  Very simple, short, but for a small child with a short attention span, effective.

I'm thinking of getting some books from the library about Christmas in the various countries, then doing Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast them with the US.  I may also use one of his stuffed animals and pretend the animal is from that other country.  Then the animal can introduce the tradition.  I know it's a simple idea, but anything that involves stuffed animals keeps my kids attention way longer than if it's just me talking.

So that's my jumping off point.  I only have a few days to get it together, so I better get to it! Pictures to come....