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).

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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