Mrs. Navarre’s Teaching Blog: Teaching Labor Day in the Classroom

For many people, Labor Day marks the beginning of a new school year. For others, it is just a nice three day weekend. Labor Day is kind of a strange holiday. It doesn’t mark a special day or specific person in history like other holidays do, yet it is one that remains a special one to many of us.

Labor Day has been a holiday in America since the late 19th century. It is celebrated on the first Monday in September, which marks the end of summer. Many of us spend one last weekend of outdoor activities with family and friends. Others simply enjoy a long relaxing weekend.

Labor Day falls at rather an inconvenient teaching time of the year. Teachers are busy helping students get settled in and become familiar with the classroom and classroom routines. It is easy to let this holiday pass without much acknowledgment of it because it falls just before kids go back to school, or soon after. But, it is kind of disappointing for students to miss out on learning about this holiday. This doesn't need to be the case though. Teachers can easily include Labor Day into their day as students begin the school year.

Adding anything extra to the curriculum isn’t easy, but squeezing in Labor Day works well. Students begin to feel comfortable in the classroom and with their peers as they talk about what they did on Labor Day weekend or over the summer; what jobs their parents have; and what they would like to be when they grow up. You can also use the Labor Day theme during normal work time. Here are some examples of how you can do this.

Reading Passage and Comprehension Page

Use a reading passage that can be read whole class, or in small groups. Read the passage together and discuss it. You can have students highlight keywords, or write notes. Then have them answer comprehension questions, referring back to the passage as needed.

Use this reading to model your expectations of how students are to work and behave during future reading in class. In other words, use this time to reinforce classroom management.

Activity Pages

Use activity pages such as a word search, vocabulary match, or an interview page to keep students thinking about Labor Day for a while. These pages work well as independent seat work, partner activities, or as part of a homework packet. You could also have students talk about what they want to be when they grow up. They can make a poster, or you could provide them with a printable page.

Allowing students to work together to complete these activities is a good opportunity for you to model how you want students to interact and be on task while working with others.

Labor Day Poem

Using poems is a great way to help build reading fluency. I do this by having students read a poem and then color one piece of the picture on the page. Read the poem together whole class. Then have students read the poem again with a partner. Finally, have them read it on their own and color in part of the picture every time they read it. Struggling readers can focus on a small portion of the poem rather than the whole poem, moving on as they become ready.

The poem is another opportunity that allows you time to model and reinforce good classroom behavior. The goal for teaching Labor Day is, of course, not classroom management. I’m simply trying to show how you can use the theme to teach the curriculum and model classroom expectations at the same time.

My main emphasis is that teaching Labor Day is something that can be done. It is often not even a thought until after it has passed, but It is important for students to learn about holidays in general, with Labor Day being no exception.

Hopefully, you can easily find some resources that you will enjoy using to teach Labor Day. I have a couple of resources that you might be interested in. You can view them on my Teachers Pay Teachers page. Either way, I hope that you will find a way to add this holiday to your already busy schedule. Don't think of it as a chore, enjoy it. Holidays are fun! Good luck!