Heritage Presentations

To introduce our reading unit on heritage, I assigned a project in which the students had to research their family's heritage and present their findings to the class.  They tried to find answers to the following questions:

• What countries are your ancestors from?
• Does your family have any customs or traditions from those countries that you still practice today?
• Do you have any foods that you eat from those countries?

If the students didn't know much about their ancestors who moved to the United States from another country, they were to simply go back a generation or two and tell about some traditions and foods/recipes that have been passed down. 

 

They were encouraged to bring in items, pictures, and food samples to share with the class.  They gave a 2 minute presentation on their heritage.  We learned so many neat things about each others' families and the students did a fantastic job!  

This is only a portion of the food that was brought in!

We enjoyed Georgia cornbread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, cannolis, bratwurst, rice and beans, Hawaiian rice, sugar cane, and biscuits with maple syrup.  We had a feast!  Seriously, most of the kids didn't eat their lunch because they were stuffed!

The heritage projects were a success!  Now we are ready to dive in to some stories that have the theme of heritage.  I'm sure the children will be able to make great connections now as they read.