Kwanzaa Activities for Kids

Kwanzaa is a celebration that often gets overlooked at school for lots of reasons, not the least of which being its celebrated when most kids are not in school, the week after Christmas.

But it’s an important celebration for kids and adults to think about and honor, whether it’s something you do at home or in the classroom either before or after winter break.

If you need a refresher, Kwanzaa is a holiday created by Maulana Karenga and based on harvest festival traditions from southern and western Africa. It’s a seven-day celebration, with each day representing a principle of African heritage:

Umoja, or unity
Kujichagulia, self-determination
Ujima, collective work and responsibility
Ujamaa, cooperative economics
Nia, purpose
Kuumba, creativity
Imani, faith

A kinara, a candle holder with places for seven candles, is commonly used during kwanzaa, with one candle being lit each day. Homeschool Superfreak has more details including what order the candles are lit, other symbols common in Kwanzaa celebrations, and information about how the holiday was developed, who celebrates it, whether it is religious and more. They also have a digital resource for purchase that includes activities and recipes for celebrating Kwanzaa.

Homeschool of 1 has some coloring pages and fact sheets about Kwanzaa you can print and use at home or in a classroom. They include information about the history of Kwanzaa, the symbols and the principles.

HMH has an activity idea for each day of the week, including a printable memory game, instructions for making different symbols of Kwanzaa, and a recipe people can work together to make.

Activity Village has a cute handprint kinara kids can make, or make one out of a paper plate with instructions from Craft Club.

Another important symbol that’s easy to create by crafting is a woven mat, known as a mkeka, where other important items are placed on the table. You can make one with the instructions from Free Kids Crafts or Make and Takes.

This pretty unity cup from HGTV is a reminder of the community that comes together to celebrate Kwanzaa and that it is community that gets us through whatever troubles we face.

If you want to cook something for Kwanzaa, consider traditional African and African American foods like jerk chicken, gumbo, peanut stew or grits. Sweet potatoes, plantains and greens are other good options.

You can also check out some books about Kwanzaa, such as:

Together for Kwanzaa
My First Kwanzaa ABC Picture Book
Holidays around the World: Celebrate Kwanzaa (this book from National Geographic Kids is a good one, with photographs of real people celebrating, and the series includes lots of different holidays)
My Family Celebrates Kwanzaa
The Story of Kwanzaa

If your family celebrates Kwanzaa or you talk about it in your classroom, I’d love to hear about what you do!

[Kinara image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay]

Learning numbers actually involves a few different skills, from recognizing the shape of the number and knowing the word that goes with it to understanding one to one correspondence for counting and what order the numbers go in.

A lot of this is learned best through play and activities that get kids counting and tracing and otherwise interacting with numbers. These activities can help.

I specifically mentioned tracing above because of these number formation rhymes cards from Teaching Mama, which can be used in lots of ways to practice making the shapes of the numbers, including tracing, lining up items on the number shapes (and counting them!), using playdough to shape the numbers and so on. Each number has a little rhyme to help you remember how to make it, which is cute.

And speaking of playdough, you can find lots of playdough number mats with different themes for kids to use as they learn about numbers. Preschool Play and Learn, for example, has these cute apple themed ones that also teach one to one correspondence as you learn the numbers and count to 10.

Or use these tree-themed ones from Live Over Cs to form the numbers, count out items on a ten frame and place the correct number of items in the tree to match the number (do this with playdough, little buttons or whatever manipulatives you have on hand). Your little builders will also love these Duplo number mats from Life Over Cs, which allow you to shape the number out of blocks and count out the number of blocks that corresponds to each number.

I also love these mats from The Savvy Sparrow that include the number and the word you can trace with playdough or marker, showing how to count the number on your fingers, a tens frame and a number line.

Finger plays and counting songs are lots of fun for little ones, too, and Childhood 101 has a great collection of songs and rhymes having to do with numbers (as well as printable song cards you can use with them.

This cardboard roll number chain form Hands On As We Grow would be a fun addition to singing number songs or to use in other play and counting games. And we all love something easy to make with stuff we already have.

Older kids who already know the order of numbers can also use these connect the dot number printables from Fun Learning for Kids. Or use the shapes for playdough mats or to practice tracing even for kids who don’t know all the numbers in order yet.

Have you read?

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