Lesson in brief: Students will work individually to create a "cultural banner" expressing values, traditions, activities, and places important in their families.

Vocabulary: Culture

Materials: Crayons, markers, and construction paper

Create a Culture Web

1. Write the word culture in the center of a piece of chart paper and circle it.

2. Ask students to brainstorm associations with the word, record the words and phrases that come up on the chart paper, and connect them to culture, creating a web.

3. Discuss the web with the students and agree on a definition along these lines: culture is the values, beliefs, and traditions shared by a group of people.

Introduce Cultural Banners

1. Distribute construction paper and markers or crayons.

2. Ask students to write their name on the banner and any symbols (words or pictures) that show values, traditions, activities, and places that are important for their family. Encourage them to use words or drawings to represent holidays, foods, sports, flags and so on.

3. After they have created the banners, ask students to pass the banners to their neighbors and keep doing so until everyone has had a chance to see every banner.

Discussion

• How was this activity for you? What did you learn from doing it?
• What are some of the cultures represented in the group?

Follow-up Suggestions

• For the next week or two, take a few minutes of each class period to give several students a chance to explain their banner to the class.
• Have students work in groups of four to share their banners with each other.