#4025. Multicultural Holidays - Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Diwali and more

other, level: Elementary
Posted Wed Aug 29 21:24:33 PDT 2007 by Jim Arnold (jimarnold@folkloremusic.com).

Folklore Music, Toronto, Canada

At this website you will find
Multicultural Holiday songs, skits, readers theater, and poems to celebrate Ramadan, Eid, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Vaisakhi, Chinese New Year, and more.
This site is updated regularly with new material.

Preparing a school assembly
An assembly that is well thought out, well rehearsed, and which carries a pertinent message will hold young people's attention and provide them with food for thought. Planning

The key to an effective school assembly is planning and preparation.

Decide well in advance when and where the assembly will take place.
Give time to thinking through structure, content and presentation.
Ensure that the venue is booked and check that no one else is using it directly before or after you.
Preparation: Gather content for your school assembly such as songs, poems, reader's theatre, and skits. Ensure there is a clear beginning and a clear end to your assembly. Before rehearsals begin, make sure that everything fits together and that the overall message is clear and focused.

Involving the students: Try to use people's talents imaginatively. Everyone will have something to offer. Build enough time into the preparation schedule to allow the children not only to develop their ideas, but to experiment and to build up enough confidence to produce results. Students need to feel involved from the start, so that they can own the finished product and take pride in their work. If a large number of students are involved (for example, a class), it may be helpful to set up small working groups to take responsibility for different parts of the assembly. Each group would need to be well briefed and to understand its role. It may be that a coordinating group will need to map out the shape and form of the assembly, ensuring that it has balance and variety. Other groups could contribute music, dance, artwork, skits, reader's theatre, and setting up.

Practice is important: Readers need to be rehearsed! Singers need to be heard! Musicians need to be taken through their music! Ask someone to watch rehearsals, to offer constructive criticism and to time everything -- a paragraph takes much longer to read out than one might think! Preferably, spoken parts should be either very simple or so well rehearsed that a script is not needed.

On the day: Request that any school notices be kept to a minimum and dealt with at the beginning of the assembly. Giving priority to the assembly is important. Before the assembly itself, allow time for quiet. A sense of the occasion needs to be realized. Take time to debrief after the assembly. It is always valuable to assess what things worked and what could have been done better.

2007 / 2008 Holiday Calendar

Rosh Hashanah - September 12 to 14

Ramadan - September 13 to October 12

International Day of Peace - September 19

Yom Kippur - September 21 and 22

Eid al-Fitr - October 13

Halloween - October 31

Diwali - November 9

Remembrance Day - November 11

Bodhi Day - December 6

Chanukkah - December 5 to 12

Human Rights Day - December 19

Eid al-Adha - December 20 to 24

Christmas - December 25

Kwanzaa - December 26 to January 1

Black History Month - February

Saint Valentine's Day - February 14

Chinese New Year - February 18

Holi (Hindu Spring Festival) - March 3

Saint Patrick's Day - March 17

Vaisakhi - April 13

Asian Heritage Month - May