Family traditions bag: a kindergarten social studies sharing activity
What it is: a kindergarten social studies activity where each student brings a small bag with one object or picture that shows a family tradition, such as a food, a game or a celebration, and tells the class about it. Students learn that families have different traditions and many shared ones.
Time: about 25 minutes. Grade: kindergarten.
Materials: a paper bag per student sent home with a short note to families, a class chart titled "Our traditions," and a few days to collect the bags.
- Share your own tradition bag first: show the object and tell who, when and why.
- Each day, 4 or 5 students share. The class asks one question to each sharer.
- Write each tradition on the chart with a quick drawing.
- After everyone shares, look for traditions that are alike: "Who else eats a special food on birthdays?"
- Students draw their tradition for a class book or wall.
Safety: ask families not to send anything valuable, breakable or edible, and make sharing optional; a picture or a drawing works just as well.
Differentiation: students who need support can share with a sentence frame: "In my family we ___." Students who are ready can compare two traditions. English learners can share the name of the tradition in their home language.
Quick check: ask a student to name one tradition from a classmate that is different from their own.
Save this activity to your library so it is ready when you need it.
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About this resource
- Shared by
- @UpOnlyLearning · Curriculum team
- Posted
- Oct 30, 2026
- Type
- Lesson plan
- Grade
- Grades K–2
- Subject
- Social studies
- Language
- English
- License
- Free for classroom, co-op and tutoring use. Please don't resell.