Photo By: Wesley Fryer
Summer Calendar Dates: Father’s Day Activities for The Classroom
Sunday the 16th of June marks this year’s Father’s Day – an occasion that honours our fathers, grandfathers, and other father figures in our lives. Commemorating the day can be a fun and engaging classroom activity that can get the children crafting, writing, and improving their presentation skills. This Father’s Day, why not try out these ideas for classroom activities dedicated to dear old dads?
Scrapbook Making
First off, show your students how to fold some sheets of coloured A4 paper in half to create an A5-size booklet, which can be fastened in the middle with coloured string or staples. Next, get each student to make a Father’s Day scrapbook, which can be filled with personal father-related memories. They may want to include family photographs (photocopies, of course – you don’t want an army of angry mums storming your classroom waving their tattered photo albums at you accusingly), pictures of his favourite hobbies cut out of magazines, hand-drawn pictures of themselves with their father, and a section where the pupil can either write a heart-felt message to their pops, or share a few fun memories they had together. This is a very sweet and personal project that would make a great keepsake, so make a point of the fact that you want to see each of your students using their best handwriting and drawing skills.
Father’s Day Presentation
This class activity will involve each pupil carrying out some stealth research on their father’s life without him knowing about it. The idea is that the child will present a five minute talk about their dad (with information gathered from those closest to him) in a ‘This is Your Life’-style presentation.
Prepare a questionnaire sheet that the child can take home and fill in with the help of mum and/or other family members. Include questions like, ‘My Dad is…years old,’ and ‘My dad works as a…’
Cover areas such as hobbies, favourite music, favourite sports (and sports teams), favourite holiday destinations, favourite food, and so on. Then get your students to take it in turns presenting their findings to the rest of the class. Primary school children are likely to have less experience and confidence speaking in front of a crowd, so this easy-peasy subject matter should be a good way to ease younger students into public speaking.
Family Tree Research
I’m sure many fathers would be delighted to receive a copy of their ancestry for Father’s Day. Family tree research is a fascinating area of study that can prompt children to develop an interest in history, because they can (quite literally) relate to the information.
Using the Internet and interviews with family members, get your pupils to investigate their family tree as far back as they can go. They can start off by looking into areas such as their surnames and the meanings thereof, which in turn will help them find out where they came from and how they came to live where they do now. They may be able to find out about their grandparents’ and great grandparents’ occupations, what their family members were doing during the Second World War or even the First World War, and so on. Then, get them to present their findings in a project notebook or in the form of a family tree diagram with branches.
Paper Mache Trophy
Get each of your students to make a ‘World’s #1’ Dad trophy as a Father’s Day present. You’ll need a balloon, strips of newspaper, PVA glue, a toilet roll tube, some thick card to make handles and a base, some gold paint, and a black marker pen. Blow up the balloon until it’s half full and get the children to cover it with three layers of newspaper and glue, allowing one coat to dry before adding another. When it’s all dry, pop the balloon inside with a pin and carefully cut a circle around the top of the paper form to make it look like the trophy bowl. Next, make 1 cm long cuts into one side of the toilet roll holder and fan them out so you can affix the tube to the base of the trophy bowl. Then cover the tube and bottom of the trophy with another layer of paper mache. When that’s dry, affix the base and handles to the trophy and then paint the whole thing gold. Finally, draw the World’s #1 Dad ‘engraving’ onto the front of the trophy and it’s all ready for gift time.
So there you have it – four Father’s Day-related activities for your classroom. If you’re looking for more fun classroom project theme ideas, check out our School Stickers Summer Calendar.
If you have tried any of these projects with your pupils, please leave a comment below.