North Ridge second grade teacher, Kayla Northcutt, said each second grade teacher chose a country to teach students about.

“We developed correlated activities to enhance the student's experiences and understanding of how Christmas is celebrated around the world,” Northcutt said. “The teachers will rotate throughout the week to each second grade classroom to teach their particular country to all the students.”

Northcutt said that second graders at North Ridge have celebrated the holidays this way for a few years.

“The students take away new and broadened experience of different cultures around the world that celebrate a common holiday in unique ways,” Northcutt said.

Northcutt explained that not only are the students learning about the different ways that other cultures celebrate the holiday season, but they are also learning so much more.

“There are so many cultures in our changing world that many students don't realize,” Northcutt. “By providing our students with information and experiences to learn about these different cultures we teach them to be more aware and open to people and ideas that are different from their own.”

Westwind ESL teacher, Stacy Reavis, said she is teaching her students about different holidays around the world through an escape room platform.

“Last year, my ESL class did a Turkey mystery,” Reavis said. “The students had to find who stole the Golden Turkey.  This October, all the kids asked if we were going to do another mystery for Thanksgiving.  I knew I couldn’t do the same activity, so I went looking for something and that is when I came across the Holiday Traditions Across the World Escape room.”

Reavis said her students are using dictionary skills, math skills, and more while they participate in this lesson.

“They are using their higher level thinking skills and inferencing a lot of information to discover the hidden clues,” Reavis said. “It looks easier than it is, even with the clues given. I have added paper activities as well: ABC order, fill in the blank, Kinara math page, Chinese Dragon face designing, making a Menorah, and following directions on how to draw Santa on the beach.”

Reavis said while talking to her students about their lesson, she discovered something.

“In talking to my kids, none of them knew about any of these other celebrations,” Reavis said. “Since my class is full of many cultures, I felt it was important to learn about different cultures, but in a fun way.  Most of my Spanish speakers had never heard Jose Feliciano sing Feliz Navidad.  That was stuck in our heads for days! My hope is they will use their reading skills, problem-solving skills, and some fun creative activities to learn about the world we live in!”