Celebrate Canada Day with Your Kids

It sometimes gets overlooked in favor of American Independence Day on July 4, but Canadians celebrate the birth of their nation on July 1 each year.

It’s not Independence Day, but it marks the signing of the Constitution Act, which, on July 1, 1867, joined the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Canada into a new nation that would be called Canada.

If you’re any good at math you’ll realize this year, 2017, is a big anniversary, 150 years since the confederation was formed. If that’s not a reason to celebrate and learn more about Canada, I don’t know what is.

Learning about Canada for Kids

If you’re from a country other than Canada you might not know much about its history, geography or culture. Thank goodness for the Internet, right?

Learn the basics from National Geographic Kids. Check this page at Ducksters for more on Canada’s geography, economy government and people.

KidZone has worksheets about Canada for a variety of ages, the lyrics to the national anthem and more. Kids World Travel Guide has some more facts about Canada your kids might be interested in, such as that nearly 90 percent of Canadians live within 125 miles of the border with the United States.

If you want to delve deeper, Kathi Mitchell has a great collection of links about Canada for further study.

Canada Day Crafts

Some great Canadian bloggers have excellent collections of crafts and activities you can do with your kids to mark Canada Day.

And Next Comes L has sensory activities, painting projects, a list of books to read and more.

One Time Through has more than 20 Canada Day activities and projects. I love the tin can wind sock, which could easily be made different colors in different countries, depending on the flag where you live.

Happy Hooligans has some great Canada craft projects, too. The red and white god’s eye is a classic project from when I was a kid!

Don’t miss the Canada Day preschool printable pack from Frugal Mom Eh, and make sue you make the Canada Day fruit kebabs for snack time while you work on the worksheets.

You’ll also want to check out the maple-scented playdough from the Chaos and the Clutter. Play and Learn Every Day has some cute Canadian flag shakers (a great upcycling project, too).

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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