Mardi Gras Classroom Party Ideas

What’s not to love about a holiday involving beads and cake? Bring some Mardi Gras fun to the classroom with these Mardi Gras themed classroom party/activity ideas.

Of course for a Mardi Gras party you’ll need some masks. Keep it simple with a version made out of a paper plate, like this one from Activities for Kids (you could also paint the plates if you don’t have colored ones handy) or cut them out of card stock or craft foam. This design from 100 Directions calls for a Cricut, but you can also just print out the template and cut them by hand.

You could also make cute jester hats to wear or to decorate. Mardi Gras Outlet has the tutorial.

Older kids might like to make their own Mardi Gras floats out of shoe boxes. This one can turn into a STEM activity if you have them draw out their designs, and they could even figure out how to make them roll. Crayola has a post with a video for this one, but you can use whatever supplies you have on hand and make it an upcycling project for more than just the box. (Speaking of STEM, though, there is a Mardi Gras float design challenge on Teachers Pay Teachers if you want something more formal.)

How about some party games? Bingo is of course a classic for class parties and time fillers, and Maple Planners has a cute Mardi Gras bingo card printable.

On Etsy you can find a “What’s your Mardi Gras Name” printable from VZ Creative Designs (it’s kid friendly) and a Mardi Gras cootie catcher from Lolly and Papi.

There’s also a cute Mardi Gras treasure hunt, which has a lot of clues that are in a house, not a classroom, but you could use some of these in a classroom or just make your own clues for kids to find a King cake or a cache of beads and doubloons. This one is from Sweetie Bs Printables.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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