Mardi Gras Activities for Kids

January 31, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Mardi Gras isn’t a holiday that’s necessarily celebrated by a lot of kids, but it’s still fun to bring into the classroom if for no other reason than to bring some color in the middle of winter (beads, masks and cake wouldn’t hurt, either).

If you want to talk about what Mardi Gras is with kids, this video from PBS Kids is a good place to start:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXCucOH4d0A?si=oBjajfW2dDefvbYF]

Mardi Gras is known as a time for parades, music, good food and fun. The colors associated with Mardi Gras are purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power. You’ll often find beads in these colors, or you can add them to your sensory activities this time of year (for example making slime or playdough in those colors). Or make a fun calming jar with Mardi Gras beads inside, with this tutorial from Mom Dot.

These printable Mardi Gras Masks from Kitchen Table Classroom are fun for kids to decorate, and you can wear them as you parade around the classroom or playground.

Homeschool Preschool has printable worksheets with a Mardi Gras theme, including writing practice, color by number and color and count, among others. You can get more color by number coloring pages from Rock Your Homeschool. And Jinxy Kids has a printable Mardi Gras word search.

Pink Oatmeal has cute printable action cards to get kids moving when they need a brain break (or maybe for use in indoor recess?). They include things like balancing, jumping and walking in certain ways to get some energy out when kids are cooped up.

You can also play with Mardi Gras beads in educational ways, as this post from Books and Giggles describes. Use them to form letters, count necklaces of different colors and graph them, make shapes and more!

How do you celebrate Mardi Gras with kids or bring it into the classroom? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Mardi Gras books for kids.

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Mardi Gras Activities for Kids

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Learning about Snow

Not all of us live where there is a lot of snow in the winter (or even where it is winter as I write this, but it can still be fun to learn about snow, what it is and why it falls, so let’s get into it!

First, let’s talk snowflake science with The Homeschool Scientist. They have a free prinatble snowflake science less that’s more than 60 pages long and good for multiple grade levels. The blog post linked here includes some fun snow facts, information about how snowflakes form and why they are both six-sided and (probably) all different.

Expressive Monkey has a great post about how snowflakes are formed and why they have six arms, and also shows some of the pictures taken by W. A. Bentley in the 1920s (more on him below).

You can also grab a free snow facts worksheet with space for kids to draw their own unique snowflakes from Education.com. Simple Living Creative Learning also has a paid snow study resource set that includes things like different types of snowflakes, the snow cycle, symmetry drawing with snowflakes, tips for snow safety, snow-related vocabulary and more.

Homeschool Superfreak has another great page for learning about snowflakes, which includes information about Snowflake Bentley, a great book to read (and person to learn about). It includes lesson plan ideas and links to activities.

Speaking of activities, if you happen to have snow around you can make snow ice cream or maple candy, paint on snow or with snow, or do some snow science experiments. If you get a ton of snow you could maybe even build an igloo or snow structure.

If you don’t get snow you can learn about how animals keep warm in the snow and cold temperatures with this experiment from I Can Teach My Child. Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls can help you learn why big paws (or snowshoes) make it easier to walk in the snow. Or make a snowstorm in a jar like this one from MomBrite.

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