As I was researching books and materials for our last two En la Clase posts on Las Posadas, I came across some other really beautiful books and fun activities that are perfect for December. These just may help you get through these last couple of weeks of school before winter break!
One of my favorite children’s books for this time of year is Gary Soto’s Too Many Tamales. In the story, the main character Maria is helping her mother prepare the tamales for Christmas dinner. She decides to try on her mother’s diamond ring. She only meant to wear it for a minute, but suddenly the ring was gone, and Maria and her siblings are left with 24 tamales that just might contain the missing ring. It’s a fun story that my students always enjoyed. It’s the perfect book to lead into a discussion about all the different foods that are part of students’ winter holiday celebrations. Lots of times they are surprised to find out how different their classmates’ celebrations are from their own. There are lots of different lesson plans out there for Too Many Tamales. Here are a few that I found:
- Teacher Vision created “Making Inferences, Too Many Tamales” for k-3
- Dayton Public Schools shared an intermediate discussion guide for the book.
- Scholastic created a Discussion Guide that would be perfect for using with after a read-aloud of the book.
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