Read Along or Enhanced eBook: The passing seasons are used as a vehicle to tell the parallel stories of the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims, from the European settlers' landing in 1620 through the first Thanksgiving feast in November of 1621.

How did Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday become a national holiday? Why do we exchange presents on Christmas and Chanukah? What do bunnies have to do with Easter? How did Earth Day become a global holiday? These questions and more are answered in this fascinating exploration into the history and meaning of holidays and rituals. Edited by Amitai Etzioni, one of the most influential social and political thinkers of our time, this collection provides a compelling overview of the impact that holidays and rituals have on our family and communal life. From community solidarity to ethnic relations to religious traditions, We Are What We Celebrate argues that holidays such as Halloween, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day play an important role in reinforcing, and sometimes redefining, our values as a society. The collection brings together classic and original essays that, for the first time, offer a comprehensive overview and analysis of the important role such celebrations play in maintaining a moral order as well as in cementing family bonds, building community relations and creating national identity. The essays cover such topics as the creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday; the importance of holidays for children; the mainstreaming of Kwanzaa; and the controversy over Columbus Day celebrations. Compelling and often surprising, this look at holidays and rituals brings new meaning to not just the ways we celebrate but to what those celebrations tell us about ourselves and our communities. Contributors: Theodore Caplow, Gary Cross, Matthew Dennis, Amitai Etzioni, John R. Gillis, Ellen M. Litwicki, Diana Muir, Francesca Polletta, Elizabeth H. Pleck, David E. Proctor, Mary F. Whiteside, and Anna Day Wilde.

Gives real-life advice to address the real-life problems of holiday stress and over spending.

Celebrate special days and themes August to December with the creative ideas in this 320-page book--bulletin boards, teacher helps, reproducible student activities, resource lists, parents' letters and much, much more! Plus a CD-ROM (print books) or .zip file (eBooks) chock-full of clip art. A valuable resource to keep close at all times!

Packed with 250 Holiday and Celebration Activities for the Whole Year! Don't just keep your kids busy, keep them learning with these exciting holiday and celebration lessons for children ages 5-10, all centered around Christ! The Super-Sized Book of Holidays, Special Days, and Celebrations: Bible Activities for the Whole Year gives you the ease and flexibility to fill your calendar with plans, projects, and parties for many special occasions throughout the year. In this book you can: Commemorate national holidays and tie them to important Bible lessonsCelebrate church holy days that will teach children about God's love, grace, and will for their livesHighlight special days such as birthdays and Teacher Appreciation DayAnd more!Putting God in the Center of Celebrations The lessons in The Super-Sized Book of Holidays, Special Days, and Celebrations remind kids that God created us and provided for our salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ. Whenever we are mindful of God during the special days we celebrate, we are giving God the glory for the blessings he has bestowed upon us. It is our prayer that by observing Christ-centered celebrations, our children will become firmly rooted in Christian principles and desire to live lives that will be pleasing to God. Key Features: Age-Appropriate: Exciting activities to engage your students in important Bible lessons. Includes fun, kid-friendly Bible topics to get even the toughest kids thinking!Reproducible and Ready to Use: Spend less time and money prepping your Bible lesson when you easily remove and copy these perforated, fully reproducible pages! With just the push of a button on your copier, you'll be teaching and entertaining your children in no time!Packed with Sunday School Activities: More than 250 activities that teach meaningful Bible stories in just a matter of moments!About the Super-Sized series The Super-Sized series provides you with an ENORMOUS number of time-tested, kid-approved activities and games that reinforce Bible lessons and home devotions and bring the fun back to learning. These books are a must for every person teaching children God's truth.

Countless different festivals are celebrated all over the world throughout the year. Some are national holidays, celebrated for religious and cultural reasons, or to mark an important date in history, while others are just for fun. Give thanks and tuck into a delicious meal with friends and family at Thanksgiving, get caught up in a messy tomato fight in Spain at La Tomatina, add a splash of color to your day at the Holi festival of colors and celebrate the life and achievements of Martin Luther King Jr. on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. With fact-filled text accompanied by beautifully bright illustrations from the wonderfully talented Chris Corr, prepare yourself for a journey as we travel around the world celebrating and uncovering a visual feast of culture.

Accessible and engaging, this methods textbook provides a roadmap for improving reading instruction. Leland, Lewison, and Harste explain why certain ineffective or debunked literacy techniques prevail in the classroom, identify the problematic assumptions that underly these popular myths, and offer better alternatives for literacy teaching. Grounded in a mantra that promotes critical thinking and agency—Enjoy! Dig Deeply! Take Action!—this book presents a clear framework, methods, and easy applications for designing and implementing effective literacy instruction. Numerous teaching strategies, classroom examples, teacher vignettes, and recommendations for using children’s and adolescent literature found in this book make it an ideal text for preservice teachers in elementary and middle school reading, and English language arts methods courses as well as a practical resource for professional in-service workshops and teachers. Key features include: Instructional engagements for supporting students as they read picture books, chapter books, and news articles, and interact with social media and participate in the arts and everyday life; Voices from the field that challenge mythical thinking and offer realworld examples of what effective reading and language arts instruction looks like in practice; Owl statements that alert readers to key ideas for use when planning reading and language arts instruction.