Resources for Teaching about 9/11

My daughter came home the other day talking about 9/11, which is something we’ve never really talked about at home, but is of course a big part of recent American history and something kids do need to learn about.

Whether you want to talk to your kids at home or in the classroom about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, there are a lot of great resources to help.

In my daughter’s classroom they were using a Scholastic reader, a Scholastic has a good collection of resources and lesson plans, including book lists, videos and first-person accounts, all organized by grade level.

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum also has 9/11 lesson plans arranged by grade level. The lessons for my daughter’s age (fourth grade) for instance include reading and discussing a book, talking about how kids grieve, important buildings, planning for emergencies, stories of heroes and different ways the event and people lost have been memorialized.

Add a craft by having kids make cards for first responders or make art responding to what they have learned.

It’s a heavy anniversary that holds so many important lessons for our kids. Do you talk about 9/11 with your kids? I’d love to hear what you’ve done in the past.

[Photo: National September 11 Memorial and Museum]

Looking for more Memorial day resources? Check these Memorial Day Books for Kids out.

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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