Festivals and holiday traditions have stood the test of time–from the days of celebrating a harvest around a fire under a full moon to spending the last year recovering from a pandemic, hoping for better days and blessings, and sending virtual greetings to our loved ones. Here’s how you can celebrate five global festivals and holidays using Quizizz with your students, friends, and family.
Quizizz is also celebrated by teachers around the world, thanks to our thriving teacher community. They regularly create and share content to help one another bring out the best in their classrooms and allow their students to discover diverse concepts, ideas, and perspectives. We’ve curated nine quizzes and lessons about global festivals from our Quizizz library that you can instantly share with your students for fun afternoons in class, just before school closes for winter break.
You can bulk import these lessons and quizzes into your collection to share with your students instantly or customize them to your requirements and students’ grade levels. Let’s dive in!
Christmas
It’s the happiest time of any year! Whether they’re making eggnog, hiding presents under the Christmas tree, putting up stockings on the fireplace, eagerly waiting for Santa Claus, or spending time with friends and relatives, Christmas is the highlight of the year for some families!
Before school closes for winter break, play Nicole Lanier’s Christmas Trivia Quiz (Grades K-4) with your students. This quiz has been played a whopping total of 3,000 times, all around the world!
BONUS TIP: You can host a pre-holiday event with a quiz and ask students to draw their favorite Christmas memory using our newest question type: Draw. Students can draw a Christmas tree, a gift they want (share these with parents/guardians later!), Santa Claus, reindeer antlers, stockings, and tinsel! Here’s a quiz created by Team Quizizz that gets you in the holiday spirit right away.
BONUS BONUS TIP: Check out Nikki Brewer’s students who used our Draw question to make DIY snowmen as a fun way to kick off class! Love the creativity @brewerSS_nikki! Keep’em coming!
Diwali
Diwali or Deepavali is the festival of lights celebrated in India and across the world with lots of pomp and splendor. Diwali traditions include lighting lamps and bursting crackers, sharing sweets, and cooking delicious food. It is also the time to take stock of the year’s blessings and pray for peace, joy, and happiness for the entire world. A US congresswoman recently proposed to make Diwali a federal holiday, serving as a great reminder that people everywhere celebrate this festival about the triumph of good over evil.
Check out Suzanne Dibden’s Diwali Quiz (Grades 8–12) with students to get a sneak peek into Diwali traditions, the Gods celebrated in the Ramayana (Rama, Sita, and Hanuman), and a British City that boasts to have the biggest Diwali celebration outside India (kudos if you’re from here!). We know that this quiz will lead to interesting story-time sessions and discussions too!
BONUS TIP: You can customize this quiz to include open-ended questions and polls to spark debate and introspection. Here’s a quiz created by Team Quizizz to help with sharing interesting ideas, perspectives, and beliefs about festivals and related traditions.
Hanukkah
Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday that’s celebrated around the world. Hanukkah, meaning ‘Dedication’ in Hebrew, is also a festival of lights. This 8-day long festival commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, Israel. Jews celebrate this festival with many oil fried dishes (as the use of oil is an important symbolic miracle) and light candles to mark the triumph of a small Jewish army of the Maccabees over the Greeks.
Allison Berry’s Hanukkah Lesson is equal parts fun and informative, and can be used to teach a live lesson in class or assigned as homework. Once your students are familiar with the game of Dreidel (instructions to play are in the lesson), you can host a Dreidel game. This year, Hanukkah is celebrated from November 28 to December 6; here’s wishing you and yours Happy Hanukkah, from all of us!
BONUS TIP: Host a potluck with Latkes (fried potato pancakes), Brisket and Sufganiyot (fried jelly donuts) for a delicious afternoon lunch.
Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a seven-day long festival (from December 26 to January 1) celebrated predominantly in the US, and across the world in recent years. This festival celebrates African-American traditions and culture. It was conceived by Professor Dr. Maulana Kalenga, of California State University, Long Beach, in 1966 during the Black Freedom Movement. Families and communities come together on all seven days to celebrate Nguzo Saba or the seven principles.
Take your students through a live session with Carlos Hill’s Lesson about Kwanzaa (Grades K-12) to understand the history, tradition, culture, and principles of Kwanzaa. You can either use it as is, customize it, or assign it as homework. We love the links and resources he’s generously provided at the end of the lesson to learn more about Kwanzaa. Thank you, Carlos!
BONUS TIP: Here’s a fun quiz created by Team Quizizz to quiz your students on Kwanzaa and Hanukkah trivia! Use as is, or customize it according to your students’ grade level and needs.
Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year is primarily celebrated in Asian countries including China, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam to herald the new year with blessings of peace, joy, luck, health, and prosperity. It is usually celebrated in January or February depending on the lunisolar calendar. Festivities include cleaning to ward off bad luck, traveling to visit relatives, gifting money in red-colored envelopes, and decorating homes with red or bright-colored dragons, lions, and motifs to ward off evil spirits.
Use Oanh Nguyen’s Vietnamese Lunar New Year Quiz (Grade 6 to University) to help students understand how this festival is celebrated in Vietnam. This quiz has been played over 1,200 times and we’re sure that your students will love it too. Also, a huge shoutout to Oanh Nguyen for creating 139 quizzes to date!
BONUS TIP: Use Linda Kennedy’s Winter Celebrations Around the World Quiz (Grades 7–12) to learn more about global holiday traditions–from what Norwegians do for Christmas to the costumes worn in Romania for New Years’–this quiz has it all!
Here’s hoping that 2022, or the year of the Tiger, will bring peace, joy, and health to the world!
Here’s also wishing you and yours happy holidays from all of us at Quizizz! Access the above content and create your own with a free account. Follow Quizizz on Twitter for more ideas for your classroom!
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