Mardi Gras Learning Activities for Kids

February 20, 2017 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Mardi Gras is about more than beads and King Cake. There’s a lot of symbolism to the celebration, and it marks a day of fun before the reverence of Lent begins.

There are a lot of different ways to incorporate Mardi Gras learning activities into your classroom, from crafts to reading books to learning a little French. Here are some activity ideas to get you started.

JDaniel4sMom wrote a post about decorating masks, making a bra graph and using beads to make a Venn diagram (that’s my favorite!).

Kids Activities Blog has a great collection of Mardi Gras activities, including links to masks and crowns, recipes, a shoebox parade float and a lot more.

Add a little Mardi Gras to your snack time with this “beaded” necklace made out of Twizzlers from No Time for Flash Cards.

Elemeno-p Kids has a Mardi Gras printable pack with handwriting activities, counting, matching and more, as well as a fun collection of Mardi Gras books for preschoolers.

Painting with Mardi Gras beads is a fun sensory experience and process art project. Where Imagination Grows shows you how.

The Handprint Mardi Gras Mask from Fun Handprint Art is another fun choice for a mask project. Add beads and feathers or just draw on it.

Learn more about how Mardi Gras is celebrated around the world, the religious meaning of the holiday and some fun ways to celebrate Mardi Gras in French class (or anywhere else) at the FluentU blog.

Do you celebrate Mardi Gras with your kids? I’d love to hear about the activities you do!

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Games to Make with LEGO Bricks

When my daughter was younger she had a ton of LEGO bricks, and I’m honestly a little sad we got rid of most of them because there are so many fun things to do with LEGOs outside of the kits you bought them in.

I love seeing all the ideas people have for LEGO building challenges, and I have shared some ideas for LEGO games before, but I saw one on Pinterest the other day that I felt was worth a mention.

This one is for those ’80s and ’90s kids who spent sick days home from school watching “The Price is Right”: LEGO Plinko!

For those who don’t know about Plinko, the original was a giant peg board set up at an angle and the contestant would drop a flat disc at the top of the board. As it moved down the board it would hit the pegs and change the way it moved, and there would be different prizes in the slots at the bottom where the piece would land.

This version from Play Party Game works on the same principle, using LEGO bricks to make the game board and marbles in place of the Plinko disc since your game board isn’t flat.

You can really use whatever bricks you have for this build, and while it shows all the pegs the same size and evenly spaced, you can play with different configurations and see what happens. It’s engineering and a game!

And while you’re playing with your LEGOs, make sure to check out this post from Kids Craft Room that includes minute to win it style games you can do with LEGO. From speed sorting to tower building as fast as you can, these ideas are sure to get you thinking about different ways to play with LEGO.

And if you need even more ideas, check out my post with LEGO building challenges you can print out for kids (and adults!) to try.

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