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Holiday time is just around the corner - an exciting and busy time of year for children, full of family time, travel, celebrations at school, and more. Even in the midst of our hectic schedules, the holidays also offer wonderful opportunities for learning.  It’s easy sometimes to overlook social studies for young children while we focus on learning to read or count.  But the holidays are an excellent time to explore history, celebrations and cultural traditions with your child. 

History is a complicated concept for young children.  As toddlers and preschoolers, they’re learning to organize their days around familiar routines, and just beginning to differentiate between yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week and next month.  This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about history, but that we should try to connect history to children’s everyday experiences in the present.  That might mean reading books together about children celebrating the holidays in other times and places, or learning about the foods and clothing that were part of the early Thanksgiving celebrations. 

Children also enjoy stories about their own history, which is a wonderful jumping off point for talking about the past and future.  As a family, you’re creating wonderful holiday traditions each year that your children will learn to expect and can participate in as the holidays approach.  You can use photos, artwork, and videos to record holiday celebrations, and then look back at them each year to talk about the events of previous years, and discuss what will be the same and different about the next one.  Family members can share stories and pictures of how the holidays were different when they were young, which helps children to make history more personal.

For many families, schools, and organizations, the holidays are also an important time for community service.  Perhaps your family has already created a tradition of giving back to the community by collecting food, giving toys, or volunteering in some other way.  Learning about social studies often begins close to home, by exploring the neighborhood, and giving back to your community provides another chance for talking about people and places.

So, happy holidays!  I hope you’ll have time to sit down as a family and share these wonderful social studies experiences and stories together and build new traditions to talk about next year!

Looking for some books and resources to learn more about social studies at home?  Check out some resources from Gayle Mindes and the NAEYC.