You know thatcinco de mayo is not Mexican Independance Day,* right? And you know that, in Mexico, cinco de mayo is not really a big deal?
If you didn’t know that, here’s a refresher. Cinco de mayo commemorates a military victory against the French in a war that Mexico ultimately lost. It is celebrated in the state of Puebla with a parade and a state fair. Outside of Puebla, the holiday is not terribly exciting: no parades, no fireworks, and (contrary to popular belief), not an excuse to drink or eat tacos. Cinco de mayo in the US, however, is often interpreted by those who don’t know better (or don’t care) as an excuse to indulge in tequila. This handy infografic breaks it down for you: A US Citizen’s Guide to Cinco de Mayo,“a big deal for people who like to get drunk and make racist jokes on Twitter.”
*FYI, Mexican Independence Day is celebrated in September. If you’re confused about that, too, here’s a quick guide toMexican Independence Day explained.
In the spirit of cinco de mayo and cultural exchange, here are five funny pictures that capture the spirit of epic US cinco de mayo fails.
Calendar fail. From cheezburger.com
From someecards.com
From cheezburger.com
Let’s be honest. From someecards.com
When you can’t beat em, join em. From buzzfeed.com
What do turkeys, travel, family, (American) football games, giant balloons, indigenous rights, cooking, shopping, school vacations, traditional costumes and thankfulness have in common?
They are all ideas associated with the American tradition of Thanksgiving, celebrated on the third Thursday in November every year. November is a great time for English classes around the world to learn about this American holiday and pick up some new vocabulary as well. Here are resources to learn about Thanksgiving and plan your own celebration.
1. Learn the history of Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 in what is now Massachusetts, United States. It was a harvest celebration attended by English colonists and Wampanoag indigenous people. Back then, it wasn’t called “Thanksgiving” and it probably was not celebrated in November! To learn more about what really happened on Thanksgiving, visit this Interactive Plimoth Plantation Exhibit and become a historian.
4. Be thankful. Thanksgiving is a time to think about the good things in our lives and express gratitude for them. Click here to read about an interactive art project called the Look for the Good Project.
Kermit the Frog (Photo credit: MikeMonello)
5. Create your own Thanksgiving Parade float. Every year on Thanksgiving Day there is a big parade in New York City, New York. There are celebrities and musical performances, but the parade is most famous for its giant balloons. They are usually characters from television, comic books, and movies. You can watch a video of the parade here. Then, follow these instructions to make your own balloon floats. Your balloon float won’t be as large as the ones in the parade… or will it?
6. Watch American football. The Thanksgiving Day football game is a tradition at the high school, university, and professional level. Not sure how to play football? This Goofy cartoon will teach you.
7. Go shopping. The day after Thanksgiving in the United States is called “Black Friday,” and it is traditionally a day for people to start shopping for Christmas gifts. Stores have big sales and people go shopping very, very early in the morning to get the best deals. Practice numbers and prices exploring this Black Friday shopping website. Who can find the best deal on a TV? On clothing? On video games?
Hand Turkey by Kara (Photo credit: Rory Finneren)
8. Do some arts and crafts. In the United States, most schoolchildren have a small vacation, starting with a half day of school on the day before Thanksgiving and continuing for four days. It is traditional for families to travel to visit one another and be together for Thanksgiving Dinner. If you still have school this week, here are some arts and crafts you can do with your class.
Send some e-cards here and here.
Do a variety of educational crafts here.
People in the United States don’t dress up in folkloric costumes as much as many other countries do, but schoolchildren often still wear costumes to represent the colonists and Wompanoag. You can watch a video about how to make a colonist costume here.
And, no Thanksgiving arts and crafts session would be complete without our favorite craft: make a Thanksgiving hand turkey here.
9. Watch a Thanksgiving video. Now that you know about American Thanksgiving traditions, sing along with this Thanksgiving song by Nicole Westbrook. How many Thanksgiving traditions do you see represented in the video? What do you see in the video that doesn’t make sense? What traditions is the video missing? Check your answers in the comments.
I’m wide awake, and I should take A step and say thank you, thank you, For the things you’ve done, and what you did Oh yeah, ooh yeah. December was Christmas, January was New Year’s. April was Easter, and the Fourth of July, but now it’s Thanksgiving. Oh oh oh, it’s Thanksgiving. We we we, we’re gonna have a good time. Oh oh oh, it’s Thanksgiving. We we we are gonna have a good time. With the turkey (hey!) And mashed potatoes (hey!) We we we are gonna have a good time. We need the turkey (hey!) And mashed potatoes (hey!)
Does this happen at your house on Thanksgiving?
It’s Thanksgiving, It’s Thanksgiving. You know school is out, I can’t wait, I can shout thank you, thank you, thank you. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, This is my favorite day. December was Christmas, January was New Year’s. April was Easter, and the Fourth of July, but now it’s Thanksgiving. Yo, it’s Thanksgiving-givin’ and I’m tryin’ to be forgivin’. Nothing is forbidden, you know we gotta have it. I gotta give thanks to you, and you, and you. Can’t be hateful, gotta be grateful; gotta be grateful, can’t be hateful. Mashed potatoes on my, on my table, I got ribs smelling’ up my neighbors’ cribs. Havin’ good times, we be laughin’ ’til we cry. It’s Thanks, Thanks, Thanksgiving, come on It’s Thanks, Thanks, Thanksgiving, give ‘em thanks, y’all. Oh oh oh, it’s Thanksgiving. We we we, we’re gonna have a good time. Oh oh oh, it’s Thanksgiving. We we we, are gonna have a good time. With the turkey (hey!) And mashed potatoes (hey!) We we we, are gonna have a good time. With the turkey (hey!) And mashed potatoes (hey!) It’s Thanksgiving, it’s Thanksgiving.
Conversation Questions:
Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in your country? Do you have another similar holiday? Which Thanksgiving tradition is your favorite?
Happy winter! Today is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Religious celebrations for holidays like Hannukah and Christmas are here. Here’s a look at Christmas traditions and winter traditions in the United States.
Christmas lights on a house in New York. Image via Wikipedia
1. Lights. It’s location in the Northern Hemisphere makes thedays shorter and the nights longerin December. On December 21st, the sun rises at 7:28 AM and sets at 5:24 PM in Phoenix, Arizona. In New York, New York, the sun sets at 4:30 PM. And in Anchorage, Alaska, the sun doesn’t rise until 10:14 AM and sets at 3:41 PM– that’s just five and a half hours of daylight. It’s no coincidence that lights are an important winter tradition– for Hanukkah, for the winter solstice, and for Christmas.
2. Greens. Taking trees and branches from plants that stay green all year, such as evergreen trees, pine trees, holly, and mistletoe, is a tradition borrowed from celebrations for the winter solstice. By celebrating plants that do not die in winter, people encouraged the winter to go away, the sun to return, and the days to lengthen. The most famous part of this tradition is the Christmas tree. Some people cut down their own trees and some people buy pine trees or fur trees for their houses. Traditional tree decorations include garlands, tinsel, glass balls, snowflakes, candles, angles, babies, stars, and candy canes.
Decorations on a Christmas tree. Image via Wikipedia
3. Giving gifts. Exchanging presents dates back to the ancient Roman feast called Saturnalia. Gifts are an important part of celebrations for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. It is also traditional for employers to give gifts to employees, coworkers to give gifts to each other, and students to give gifts to their teachers. ”Secret Snowflake” or “Secret Santa” gift exchanges, where each person in a group gives an anonymous present to somebody else, are popular.
4. Carols. Caroling is the tradition of singing winter or holiday songs. Sometimes people go from house to house singing for money. Some songs, like “Jingle Bells” and “Let it snow” are about winter, some are about winter traditions like “Deck the Halls,” and some like “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World” are about Christmas.
5. Food. Traditional winter food and drink include hot chocolate, cookies, cakes, and pies.
Questions for conversation: Is it winter where you live? What winter traditions are celebrated in your country?
A traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Image via Wikipedia
Two-hundred forty-eight million turkeys. Seven hundred fifty million pounds of cranberries. Two hundred sixty six point one million pounds of cherry tarts. What do these large quantities of food have in common? They are all traditional foods for the North American holiday Thanksgiving. The quantities are forecasted production of each kind of food for the year 2011. Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated on the third Thursday in November in the United States, when families share a large meal. It is also celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada. Traditional dishes include turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkins, mashed potatoes, and pie.
An artist imagines what the first Thanksgiving looked like 300 years before. Image via Wikipedia
According to theU.S. Census Bureau, the average American ate 13.3 pounds of turkey in 2009, and 5.3 pounds of sweet potatoes. But the holiday is not only about food. Its origins come from North American festivals to celebrate a good harvest in the autumn. The “first Thanksgiving” was a festival held in Plymouth Colony (in what would later be called Massachusetts) in 1621, although similar festivals were also celebrated in other places in North America in other years. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln made the holiday official in 1863. Thanksgiving is about the food, but more than that, it is about being grateful for the food, and other good things in life as well.
Gratitude is the feeling of appreciation for positive things. Gratitude is the good feeling you get when you are happy about the things you have. To be grateful or to be thankful is to express gratitude. On Thanksgiving, it is traditional to think about the things we are thankful for.
The spirit of Thanksgiving is reflected in theLook for the Good Project. An artist collects postcards from around the country that answer the question “What makes you grateful?” The postcards are published on the website for everyone to read.
Look through the postcards. Where are they from? What are people thankful for? Do you see any similarities between the cards?
Which card is your favorite? Who do you think wrote it? Why do you like this card?
Thanksgiving vocabulary:
gratitude to be thankful / to be grateful to give thanks thanksgiving November traditions family turkey cranberries potatoes squash pie
Questions for Conversation:
Do you have a special day to give thanks?
Do you have a special day to celebrate (and eat) with family?
What makes you grateful? Tell us in a comment. Then write your answer on postcard and send it to theLook for the Good Project. Check the website to see if it is posted online.
You know what being bilinguish can do for your social life. It can also do great things for your brain. Image via Wikipedia
You knew learning languages was good for you: for your vocabulary, for your social life, for your job prospects, and for your chances of getting an A in school. But did you know how good it is? Several recent studies have come out pointing to the benefits of language learning. Here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting.
Babies can tell the difference between different languages before they can speak themselves. Being exposed to more than one language from birth gives you the ability to distinguish between different languages when your monolingual peers can’t, and you retain that ability longer, according to this ScienceNOW article.
Being bilingual makes you multitask better. This Science Daily articlecompares speaking more than one language to using a “mental gymnasium.”
Bilingualism helps people throughout life, especially when it comes to brain function and memory. Speaking two languageshelps protect your memory…
Your language skills are connected to your ability to understand basic math concepts. This Education Week articleexplores the way ability to count and recognize numbers are related to ability to use words.
Hearts, flowers, chocolates, and flying babies: it’s that time of year again. Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14. The date was declared Saint Valentine’s Day by Pope Gelasius I in the year 496, in honor of a priest who had been executed on February 14. Inthe Catholic religion, Saint Valentine is the patron saint of love, young people, and happy marriage. (Is there a different patron saint for unhappy marriage?)
In some countries, Valentine’s Day is considered a “day of love and friendship,” but in the United States, the emphasis is on love and romance. The word Valentine also refers to heart-shaped cards exchanged by couples on this day.
Have a look at some common Valentine’s Day traditions in the United States, with some statistics from theU.S. Census Bureau.
Flowers, cards and gifts -Bouquets of flowers are a traditional Valentine’s Day gift, even though many parts of the U.S. are blanketed in snow at this time of year.
-In elementary schools, students exchange Valentine’s Day cards with their classmates. Sometimes students make cards by hand, but normally they buy boxes of cards from the store. Esther Howland, from the state of Massachusetts, is known as the first person to sell mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards in the 1840’s.
Red, white, pink, and yellow roses. Image via Wikipedia
-In some schools, students buy flowers to give to classmates as a fundraiser. Traditionally, white flowers mean friendship, pink indicate “a crush” and red symbolize love.
$80 is the price of 12 long-stemmed red roses from an online florist in the United States for Valentine’s Day.
18,509 was the number of florists in the United States in 2008.
$2.4 billion dollars was the amount of money spent on jewelery in the United States in February 2010.
$7 dollars is the price for a box of 32 classroom Valentine cards with envelopes included.
Image by bethhaught via Flickr
Candy
-Chocolates and candy are traditional Valentine’s Day gifts. “Conversation hearts,” small sugar hearts with messages in English, are very popular for Valentine’s Day.
-24.3 pounds is the amount of candy per capita consumed by Americans in 2009.
Other traditions
$2.1 million is the number of marriages performed in the U.S. in 2009.
28.2 and 26.1 years were the average ages of men and women, respectively, on their first marriages.
54.1 was the percentage of adults in the United States who reported being married in 2009.
6% was the percentage of women in 2004 who had been married for at least 50 years.
Vocabulary for Valentine’s Day candy hearts valentines Cupid flowers secret admirer romance “be mine”
Questions for conversation Is Valentine’s Day celebrated where you live? What traditions are popular on this day? Do you think people should buy gifts to show love on Valentine’s Day?
And if you were thinking of getting somebody a gift, consult this infographic for its exact brillance or lameness:
