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).

Several countries have a day set aside to honor and recognize their inventors, but Nov. 9 is a special one that’s known as Tag der Erfinder in German. It’s celebrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and it falls on Nov. 9 because that’s the birthday of Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr is widely known as an actress but there’s a lot more to her story. You can get a little of it geared to little kids in the Little People, Big Dreams book Hedy Lamarr (32 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by Frances Lincoln Childrens Books, suggested retail price $15.99).

The book explores her birth in Austria and how she spent time when she was young coming up with inventions. She became an actress, married an arms dealer, made her escape to America and became an actress again.

But she also helped develop a frequency-hopping signal device for airplanes that was used by the Americans and their allies during World War II. That technology became the basis for wireless technology such as wifi and GPS.

While Inventor’s Day is a great time to learn about Hedy Lamarr, you can take this opportunity to check out books and do little studies on lots of different inventors. If there’s an inventor or an invention your child is particularly interested in, that’s a great place to start. It’s fun to think about all the things we use every day that didn’t always exist; someone had to invent them!

For a start here at Craft Gossip you can learn more about Garrett Morgan, who invented traffic lights; Maria Oroso, who developed a clay oven that could cook food without electricity; and more female inventors and scientists.

And for more general inventors’ fun, check out this inventors word search from Fun Findery (and another from Let’s Do Puzzles) or take a quiz on inventors and their inventions from Flanders Family Home Life.

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