How to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo and Ramadan Appropriately

"For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo. It means talking to and spending time with kids not like them so that they may discover those kids are in fact just like them."

-- John Ridley

Cinco de Mayo and the start of Ramadan in the U.S. fall on the same day this year, May 5th.  That provides educators with a great opportunity to teach about tolerance, understanding, immigration, and the benefits of diversity in America!

Photo from Flickr

Teaching Tolerance has this short article that explains the origin of Cinco de Mayo and offers some ideas on how to celebrate the holiday appropriately.  We Are Teachers has a more in-depth article designed to get educators thinking about what they want to accomplish by celebrating the holiday with their students and has some excellent questions you can ask yourself when thinking about observing Cinco de Mayo and any cultural holiday in your classroom.

Moon and stars illustration from: Storyblocks

My TpT resource for Ramadan includes a reading passage that explains what the holiday is all about, along with 4 other classroom activities.  Since I have lived and worked in 2 Muslim-majority countries (Sierra Leone and Indonesia) and traveled in others with large Muslim populations (Turkey, India and China), I created this resource to dispel some of the misconceptions people have about Muslims.

Click HERE for more info; source: The ESL Nexus

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!