Cultural Awareness Activities for Elementary Students

This Celebrations of Culture resource is a differentiated paired passage worksheet set that seeks to bring the beauty of world cultures into the classroom. A compare and contrast activity has students comparing the Mexican holiday known as Dia de los Muertos with the U.S. holiday of Halloween. 

The differentiated resources offered in this downloadable resource come in two levels – on and below level. Each set of paired passages is accompanied by a compare and contrast cut and sort activity and a structured writing template for producing a constructed response/compare and contrast paragraph.

This set of Halloween vs. Dia de los Muertos worksheets focuses on the following skills:

• Comparing and Contrasting the holidays (Passages)
• Identifying facts and details 
• Organizing and recording information (Cut and Sort Table)
• Writing an Informative paragraph (Sentence Frames Provided)

An answer key is included with your download to make grading fast and easy!  Be sure to check out additional cultural diversity worksheets for elementary students here!

Differentiated Reading Comprehension Options

In addition to independent student work time, use this worksheet as a:

• Guided reading groups
• Lesson warm-up
• Lesson wrap-up
• Fast finishers 
• ELL Reading Group Activities
• Introduction to an elementary culture project, or as a lead-in to a schoolwide diversity show and tell event.

Easily Download & Print

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to download the PDF version of this resource. 

Because this resource includes an answer sheet, we recommend you print one copy of the entire file. Then, make photocopies of the blank worksheet for students to complete. 

Additionally, project the worksheet onto a screen and work through it as a class by having students record their answers in their notebooks.

Find more activities to teach diversity in the classroom on our blog!

This resource was created by Kiri, a teacher in Illinois and Teach Starter Collaborator. 

Don’t stop there! We’ve got more activities to shorten your lesson planning time:  

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