January — Special Days and Events for Classroom Celebrations - Readilearn
Throughout the year there are many special days and events that are worthy of celebration in the classroom. They may draw attention to issues affecting our world and its inhabitants or celebrate achievements and contributions to the arts or our collective knowledge.
On the last Friday of each month, I will provide you with a list of days and events worthy of celebration in the following month. This is the list for January. The list is not exhaustive and is simply some ideas to spark your imagination.
As 2020 is the International Year of Plant Health, January is the ideal time to start thinking about how you can use the theme Protecting Plants, Protecting Life to foster learning throughout the year. It fits perfectly into Science Biology units that focus on living things, habitats and the environment; or perhaps you might consider using it as an overarching theme in your classroom for the year.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the year “is a once in a lifetime opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.”
Establish a vegetable or native garden
Adopt an area of bushland
Decorate your classroom with a plant theme
Have potted plants in your classroom
Schedule time in your program for exploring outdoors
Conduct experiments about the needs and features of living things — plants
Read books about plants
Discuss the importance of plants to our lives
View and discuss this promotional video
We will be adding plant-themed resources to the collection throughout the year, so keep checking back for those.
Plant/Environment dates to plan for throughout the year
Below are some dates you could earmark for additional celebrations of plant health and caring for plants throughout the year. However, it is not necessary to limit your celebrations to these days or to observances for your location. Raising awareness is important whatever the time of year.
29 June International Mud Day
31 July Schools’ Tree Day (Australia)
2 August National Tree Day (Australia)
1 September Wattle Day (Australia)
7 September National Threatened Species Day (Australia)
Plant/Environment related picture books
There are many beautiful picture books that introduce children to plants, their importance, how they grow, and how to care for them. These are just five:
The year 2020 is a leap year. Instead of 365 days, the year will have 366. Although the additional day does not occur until 29 February, it’s never too soon to explain what a leap year is and why we have it. It’s also a great time for counting in fours and discussing multiples of four.
January dates to celebrate
18 January National Winnie the Pooh Day
Read Winnie the Pooh stories.
Learn about A. A. Milne and why he wrote the stories.
Discuss the characters that feature in the stories. Use words to describe their physical characteristics and personalities. Invite children to tell which character is their favourite or they would most like to be friends with and explain why.
Invite children to tell which character they are most like or have something in common with and explain why.
Present children’s favourite characters on a graph. Discuss the findings.
Invite children to use their imaginations to put themselves in the Hundred Acre Wood with Winnie the Pooh and friends and write their own adventures with them.
Do a guided drawing lesson with Winnie the Pooh or/and other characters.
The readilearn collection includes the following free resources to help you teach and celebrate Chinese New Year:
Let’s read about Chinese New Year
This resource tells about the festival from the perspective of Mabel Kwong who is of Chinese heritage and grew up in Singapore and Malaysia and now lives in Australia. Mabel explains some of the history of the festival and shares memories of celebrating the New Year when she was growing up.
These bookmarks can be printed and distributed to children, their parents or colleagues to wish them a Happy New Year. Suggestions for decorating the bookmarks are also included.
This resource suggests simple ways of acknowledging your students of Asian background and teaching all students about Chinese New Year traditions by celebrating Chinese New Year in the classroom.
Author Spotlight —Sofia Goodsoul
In this interview, Sofia Goodsoul discusses her picture book Nian the Lunar Dragon which tells the legend behind Chinese New Year celebrations. The book is beautifully illustrated by Marina Kite.
Getting to know each other and learning about the cultures and traditions celebrated by children in your class is a great way of developing understanding and respect. This unit supports you in finding out about the children in your classroom.
Picture books to read:
Nian the Lunar Dragon by Sofia Goodsoul and Marina Kite
Whoever You Are by Mem Fox and Ronojoy Ghosh
All are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufmann
26 January Australia Day (Australia)
Advance Australia Fair by P.D. McCormack and J. McIntosh
29 January National puzzle day
Try out these games and puzzles in the readilearn collection:
Printable and online 9 square puzzles include:
Interactive 9 square turtle puzzle (online)
Interactive 9 square Christmas puzzle (online)
Logic puzzles include:
Which gift? Playing Secret Santa — a logic puzzle (printable)
Whose egg? A logic puzzle (printable)
31 January Multicultural Children’s Book Day
When children see themselves and others represented in stories, they develop a greater sense of self and of understanding and acceptance of others. It is important to read stories that represent the diversity that exists in our classrooms as well as our world. Click on this link to download free classroom resources for celebrating Multicultural Children’s Book Day.
Readilearn is proud to be a reviewer for Multicultural Children’s Book Day. Read last year’s review of I am Farmer by Baptiste and Miranda Paul with illustrations by Elizabeth Zunon here and look for another review coming on the blog in January.
Multicultural picture books — a selection from my bookshelf
This free resource is a list of selected multicultural books included in my collection.
This list of January days and events is also available in printable form to download free in readilearn resources here.
Suggestions for the International Year of Plant Health can be downloaded free here.
A 2020 calendar decorated for the International Year of Plant Health can be downloaded free here.
And the calendar presented with 3 to a page for use as bookmarks can be downloaded free here.
A printable copy of a calendar of special days and events for the year is available to download free here.
Also uploaded this week.
Turn on the Christmas Lights is based on the traditional Hang Man game in which players guess letters to solve the word puzzle. It includes ten Christmas themed word puzzles which are solved online. It is available free until the end of the month.
Norah, do you think the fires are going to alter International Plant Day? How do children process such events in the classroom?
Charli, I don’t know how our fires will influence the UN’s International Year but it seems to me that it is of even greater importance now than it was before. I don’t know how anyone is going to process these horrific events, let alone children.
I think you might find this information shared by ABC News earlier today interesting: “To give some scale to what has happened here so far, international media outlets have been reporting the 2018 California fires burnt 2 million acres; the 2019 Amazon fires 2.2 million; and the 2019 Siberian fires 6.7 million.
So far Australia’s 2019/20 fires have burnt 12 million acres.”
It is almost incomprehensible, and would be – if it wasn’t true.
Terrific list Norah – your class will definitely enjoy the year ahead!
looks like January should be a fun month for kids!
Thanks for sharing these special days in January, Norah. Your ideas for celebrating these with children are terrific.
Thank you, Robbie. I like to make learning fun as well as meaningful. 🙂