Columbus Day Activities for Kids

October 5, 2017 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Columbus Day may be falling out of favor as a holiday these days (even in the few years my daughter has been in school, she’s gone from having the day off to having a different day off this month and calling it “fall break” instead) but it does provide us with an opportunity to talk about exploration and to look at how Columbus’ journeys to the so-called New World changed the world in ways good and bad.

Of course what you tell your kids about Columbus will depend greatly on their age. Time has a good rundown of how to talk to kids about America before Columbus depending on the age of the kids. Modern Mami has a take on how to talk about Columbus with kids, from the perspective of a Caribbean family. And Indian Country Media Network has links to lots of great resources for teaching about Columbus and the indigenous people of the Americas.

Columbus Day also gives us a chance to work with boats and maps with kids of all ages. Here are some fun activities you might want to check out:

Engineer a Boat that Floats — Planet Smarty Pants

Columbus Day Coloring Sheets and Writing Prompts — 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Paper Boats for Kids to Make — Kids Activities Blog

Columbus Day Learning Unit — Lasting Thumbprints

Christopher Columbus Mini Pack — 3 Dinosaurs

Christopher Columbus Activities for Kids — Happy Brown House

Christopher Columbus Unit — Royal Baloo

Map Skills for Elementary Students — National Geographic

[Photo by Eric Fischer via Flickr.]

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Easy Pen and Paper Games for Road Trips and Beyond

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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