Children in the Knoxville School District have been using the days leading up to the Christmas break, to learn how other holidays are observed, and how other countries observe them.

The kids in Shawn Helle’s 2nd grade class at West Elementary have been learning about the three major holidays observed in America; she tells KNIA/KRLS News they have found these occasions have more in common than might be obvious.

“We’ve seen a lot of similarities between Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, and we have the little song we’ve been singing about that; and we saw that all three have family, and giving gifts and getting gifts; and some of them have candles,” Helle says.

Her class and the others in their part of school have been going on an imaginary tour of other countries, visiting other rooms set up to look like foreign countries and learning about their holiday customs and other customs.