March Holidays and Special Days: Elementary Classroom Activities, Ideas, and Lesson Plans

Mix up your elementary classroom curriculum by celebrating some of the holidays and special days in March. While many of them may seem trivial, they will peak students' interest and create a little variety in your regular curriculum. Most of the holidays can be worked into the current curriculum with some simple modifications. Alternatively others can provide a break in the routine with a special snack or lesson. Additionally, it is very easy to adapt many of the suggestions for these holidays to any particular grade level. For example, for a written activity, younger grades can draw pictures while older grades can write sentences or paragraphs.

• Provide fiction and non-fiction pig book choices for free reading and/or read a pig book for read aloud time.
• Plan a field trip to the zoo and visit the pigs. If possible, arrange for one of the zookeepers to talk about the pigs.
• Have students write about personal experiences with pigs.
• Complete math story problems about pigs that involve the concepts from the current math curriculum.

Please note that a number of schools do not allow any peanut products. Check school rules and student allergies carefully before serving peanut butter to students.

• Serve one or more healthy snacks with peanut butter (i.e. celery sticks with peanut butter).
• Take a student poll to see who prefers smooth vs. chunky peanut butter. Graph and discuss the results.
• Teach your students the peanut butter and jelly song. You can also bust out the ever popular Peanut Butter Jelly Time video.

Many elementary schools have school-wide Dr. Seuss celebrations such as assemblies. If your school does not do anything like this, here are a few suggestions for your classroom.

• Whip up some some Dr. Seuss snacks, such as green eggs and ham or a cake with Dr. Seuss inspired primary color designs. Food coloring is your friend.
• Make red and white hats like the Cat in the Hat wore out of construction paper and poster board.
• Pick a favorite Dr. Seuss book to turn into a class play. Make costumes and scenery. Volunteer to put on the play for any classes who are interested.

• Learn about the history of the United State's national anthem.
• Listen to and sing the Star Spangled Banner.
• Have students pick countries and then find the lyrics and national anthems for those countries online.

• There are lots of great freebie materials out there related to dentists and oral hygiene. Check out this send way offer from Colgate. There are lots of lesson plans and materials online as well. I have linked a few below. You can design some brief lessons that suit your grade level and particular group of students.
• Ask your dentist to come in to give a brief talk to students about oral hygiene. If there are other classes/grade levels in the school interested in doing Dentist's Day activities, you may be able to get a larger group together for a presentation.

• Learn about the development of the telephone and how it has changed throughout history.
• Compare photos of phones throughout the years. Note how many changes there have been just in the past 10 years from chunky wall and cordless phones to razor thin smart phones.
• With older elementary school students, discuss the merits of calling vs. texting and functions that are more appropriate for one vs. the other. Cell phone etiquette may be another great discussion topic, too.

• When students complete any written work that day, have them include their middle name on their papers.
• Instead of calling each other by their first names, students can call each other by their middle names. If students are having trouble remembering the middle names, have everyone wear name tags.
• If students do not know what their middle names mean, have them look up their names online or in a name book.

• If your school has its own garden and the ground isn't frozen, head outside and work on getting the ground ready for planting.
• Learn about just a few of the plants that thrive well in your particular climate.
• Plant seeds. Consider herbs or other plants that will thrive well indoors. Plant them in little pots or other containers that students will be able to take home with them OR that you can care for in your classroom.

• Discuss what it means to be a good Samaritan with specific examples that will be applicable for your students.
• Role play scenarios being a good Samaritan vs. a bad Samaritan.
• Have students each make a list of 5 things that they can do to be a good Samaritan. Challenge them to complete one of these things within the next week. Have students write about or simply orally present their experiences to the class afterward.

• Check out books about potatoes and potato chips from the library. Have students each research 1-2 facts and then share them with the class.
• Conduct a survey about favorite kinds of potato chips. Create a graph with the results and discuss them (which flavor did the most students like, etc.).
• Get permission to use the school's kitchen facilities and make your own potato chips with your students.

• Complete a St. Patrick's Day writing prompt (scroll down in the linked post for journal prompt ideas). Write a final draft on St. Patrick's Day writing paper or type a final draft on the computer and add St. Patrick's Day clip art.
• If you didn't make green eggs and ham for Dr. Seuss's birthday or your students want to revisit this idea, have a green food fest.
• Create a gold scavenger hunt in the classroom or around the school. Create clues that the students have to solve to find gold covered chocolate coins or other fun gold items.

• Provide poetry books for free reading time and/or read poems during read aloud time.
• Teach students a new poetry concept that is appropriate for their age level and have them write their own poems.
• Pick a popular children's poem, such as a poem by Jack Prelutsky or Shel Silverstein. Have students write their own version of the poem, i.e. following the form and/or topic.

Imaginations can run free today as students make up their own holidays. Have them consider history, traditions, food, games, imagery, and when it will be celebrated. This may be a project that you start today and work on throughout the next week or even month. At the culmination of the project, have students present their holidays and/or create a holiday display in the classroom. If you want to take it one step further, schedule celebrations for these holidays throughout the remaining weeks of the school year.

• Learn about some of the most crazy state fair foods and other foods that are served on a stick. If students have tasted any of these foods themselves, have them share their experiences.
• Have students brainstorm their own ideas for food on a stick. Write about them or draw pictures.
• Have a snack that involves food on a stick, even if it something common like Popsicles.