Reflecting on Winter Solstice Celebrations in the Classroom
By Virginia Wannamaker Brooks
It’s been almost 10 years since I was with elementary children in the classroom. However, as I reflect on the upcoming holidays and my time with those children, I recognize that some of my favorite memories were made while celebrating the winter solstice.
Starting with the big picture:
Because of the history of the winter solstice and the celebrations that accompany it, there are numerous fascinating aspects to explore and discover. I particularly enjoyed reading snippets of an opinion piece written by Richard Cohen in the New York Times in 2010: There Goes the Sun. The piece delves into various solstice stories throughout time, beginning with the fundamental questions: What is the solstice? Why do we experience the shortest day and longest night of the year in December? Where does the word 'solstice' come from? Many of my students could easily answer these questions due to the key lessons given about the solstice in earlier months. Nevertheless, a quick refresher of this early 'Sun and Earth' lesson always marked the beginning of the season.
Then the details:
The beauty of Cohen’s piece really comes through in the details, where he explores the various ways different cultures, times, and peoples have recognized and celebrated the winter solstice. All of these stories relate to light, or the lack thereof. “Did you know that in areas of northern Pakistan, some men have cold water poured over their heads in purification and are forbidden to sit on any chair until the evening? I wonder why they do this,” I would ponder aloud. “Have you heard that in parts of Scandinavia, people put butter on their doors so the sun goddess can lick it off?” These are some of the “juicy details” that sparked the interests and engaged the imaginations of my students. They wanted to learn more, and their minds were ripe and ready for the research and exploration this requires. Quite often, I would read a little bit of this article and then set it down on a desk somewhere for children to look at. Inevitably, students would take turns reading (if they could), and they would pick and choose the parts of the article that spoke to them and share with their friends.
Finally, action:
Plays were always a significant part of my classroom, so whenever we told history stories or discussed something new that even remotely resembled a story, it manifested in the environment as theater. Depending on the group of children, the plays took on a different focus—sometimes a Christian or Jewish theme, sometimes a solstice presentation with a Norse vibe. And there were the always-welcome, somewhat gruesome, New World rituals. The chosen follow-up work for these key lessons in the classroom knew no bounds and quite often had to be “reined in,” but the children’s engagement in this work was the ever-present goal. Sure, it added to the chaos and paper scraps that already decorated my classroom around the holidays, but my students reveled in the breadth of options and the interconnections of science, math, history, and language that these stories provided. This was how they learned; this was how they made it real for them.
As this winter solstice draws near, I hope the focus of your classroom remains on these stories that spark interest in the children. In the darkest time of the year, don’t forget that it is up to you to “light the fire.”
Reference Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/opinion/20cohen.html
Virginia Wannamaker Brooks M.Ed., MINT Executive Director
Virginia holds a Master’s in Education with focus on Montessori from Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland and a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Marquette University, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is AMI-trained at all three levels, having earned the Assistants to Infancy Diploma from The Montessori Institute in Denver, Colorado, the Primary Diploma from the Montessori Institute of Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Elementary Diploma from the Montessori Institute of Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Virginia has been an Elementary guide in AMI Montessori schools in South Carolina, Colorado, Virginia and Texas. She is a member of the Board of Directors of MACTE.
