Greetings from The Paley Center for Media’s Education Department!

Welcome to the latest installment of “What We’re Watching,” a Paley guide for Education@Home. Twice a month the education department reaches out to the community with tips and ideas for consuming media with kids. Each guide highlights a different theme that connects to two selected programs, one for younger viewers and one for older viewers, each with related activities and resources. 

Consuming media with your kids is a perfect jumping-off point to making media literacy a part of your everyday lives. Familiarizing yourself with the basics is a great first step. In case you missed it, you can view our first edition about media literacy best practices. We also recommend the National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Parents Guide—it’s a terrific introduction!
What We're Watching: Hanukkah and Kwanzaa

Happy Holidays! With the festive season upon us we thought we’d recommend programs to watch for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa since they never get as much airtime as these two celebrations deserve. As usual, we have one recommendation for younger kids and one for older, but both are great for family viewing and we hope you enjoy them no matter how you plan to celebrate this holiday season.

This Week's Recommendations for Younger Viewers

The Proud Family: “7 Days of Kwanzaa” (2001)
Recommended for Grades K+
Available on Disney+

As the Proud family goes Christmas shopping, they meet a homeless family. Trudy tells Oscar to find the family and give them some money. When Penny and Oscar find them, Penny asks if they want to have Christmas dinner with them. They'd love to! On Christmas, they arrive seven hours early and bring the Prouds a fruitcake. Nobody thinks much of it so they give it to Bobby who throws it out the window! When Penny gives them their presents, they don't seem to like them. Trudy, feeling a bit concerned, asks them why. The family explains that they celebrate Kwanzaa. The family tells the Prouds all about it and celebrates it with them.

Viewing Questions

  • What do we see the Proud family doing at the beginning of the episode?
  • What happens when Penny and Oscar accidentally end up in the homeless shelter?
  • How does Oscar react when Penny invites a family they meet at the shelter over for Christmas dinner the following day?
  • The next day when the family arrives and appears not to be interested in presents, what does Penny find out? How are they different from the Proud family? How do they feel about material possessions, or “things”? What do they value more?
  • What holiday do they celebrate? What do they teach the Proud’s about Kwanzaa?
  • What do we learn about it as a result? What are the seven principles of Kwanzaa?
  • What happens when the Proud’s return to the shelter? How does the episode end?

Extension Activities



Additional Resources

Read

Learn more about Kwanzaa here and here.

Watch

A Rugrats Kwanzaa (2001)
Arthur Perfect Christmas (2018) on PBS Kids
This Week's Recommendations for Older Viewers

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Recommended for Grades 3+
Available on Amazon Prime

This popular musical film, based on a Broadway play by the same name, is a wonderful way to celebrate Jewish traditions during the eight days of Hanukkah. In pre-revolutionary Russia, a poor Jewish milkman named Reb Tevye with traditional values, must contend with marrying off three of his daughters. Among the traditions of the Jewish community, the matchmaker arranges marriages and the father approves the match. When the local matchmaker Yente arranges the match between his older daughter Tzeitel and the old widowered butcher Lazar Wolf, Tevye agrees with the wedding. However, Tzeitel is in love with the poor tailor Motel Kamzoil and they ask permission of Tevye to get married, which he accepts to please his daughter. When his second and third daughters also want to break with tradition and marry for love it tests Tevye, meanwhile around them growing anti-Semitic sentiment threatens his village.

Viewing Questions

  • Describe the setting of the film. Who do we meet and what is life like in this time and place?
  • The father, Tevye, often talks about the importance of tradition. Does he always follow tradition? Why or why not?
  • What happens over the course of the film with the matchmaker’s matches for his three daughters and why?
  • How do the parents feel about the outcome and why?
  • Did anything that happened in this movie remind you of something that has occurred in your own life or that you have seen happen to others?
  • What do you think the overall message of the movie is?

Extension Activities



Additional Resources

Watch

The Black Candle (1991)
Everybody Hates Chris: “Everybody Hates Kwanzaa” (2007)
The Goldbergs: “A Christmas Story” (2015)
The OC: "The Best Christmukkah Ever" (2003)
As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at eduny@paleycenter.org.

Happy viewing,

The Education Department
Photos—The Proud Family: Disney; Fiddler on the Roof: United Artists
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