National Holidays

Who doesn't like National Holidays! I sure do and so do many of my Social Media friends. People are  always posting pictures of themselves celebrating a National Holiday. I'm sure there's a hashtag - #NationalHolidays that you can post to and follow.

Well, my students love them as well. They are always so eager to enter the room each morning to find out what the National Holiday will be for the day. Some students will even come into the room and tell me they heard it announced on the radio on their way to school.

Each morning in my 4th grade classroom I display the National Holiday of the day.  I use the site Checkiday

I used this site because it displays an image on various holidays for the day. I look for the one that states National in the front, sometimes there's more than one. So, when this occurs I search Google with each Holiday to see which one is more popular, or the one that Google selects as the National Holiday. I then click on images to find a picture that I can paste onto my Promethean board for display with the National Holiday. However next year I may use the site National Day Calendar.

This site not only gives you the image, but also the history of the day. I may add a job to my classroom this coming year and have a students read up on the holiday and share it with the class to start the day or I may assign a student to each week of school to pick the holiday of that week of their choice to present to the class. OOHHH! The ideas are flowing now!

Displaying these holidays on my board always sparks a discussion amongst students, especially the food related ones. We talk about whether we've eaten the dessert before like (National Chocolate Ice Cream Day) or if it's a well-known person, place, or event we connect it to our learning. I especially love the National Holidays that relate to our Social Studies Unit of Study. This allows for a way to remember and honor the heroism and achievements of the people, events, and our nation's ethnic heritage.

There are many benefits to exposing students to these holidays:

1. They become informed citizens.

2. It increases communication in the classroom and outside of school.

3. It increases interests on particular holidays.

4. It encourages students to explore.

I hope I've sparked an interest in you to expose your students to National Holidays!

So, have you had your Chocolate Ice Cream today?