Every third Wednesday of the month, the Youth Librarian and I are responsible for planning and implementing an Afterschool Program geared toward school age children (5-12 years old).  Each program generally consists of activity or game stations, a craft station and a light snack or treat.

In order to promote cultural relativism, celebrate diversity and foster a community of inclusiveness, I thought it would be nice to go with a Christmas Around the Globe theme for our December program. With this in mind, we created mini-passports, and set up stations representing foreign countries. Each station/country displayed related non-fiction books and signage featuring facts about the county and how its citizens celebrated Christmas.

Program attendees were then tasked with picking up passports and “visiting” Sweden, France, Mexico and the Philippines to find out how each country celebrated the holiday. To receive a “passport stamp” via the Customs Agent, children (and their caregivers) had read signage in order to fill-in the blanks on their passports. We also set up a stations featuring foreign names for Santa Claus, and how to say Merry Christmas in other languages.

Other activities/stations included: Christmas Around the World Bingo, Christmas Around the World Cross World Puzzle, a Snowflake Craft, and candy cane treats.

Storytime