Free Printable Yom Kippur Activities

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, takes place in the month of Tishrei on the Hebrew calendar, ten days after Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year. Here are free printable Yom Kippur activities for kids. Yom Kippur is part of the Days of Awe. It's the highest of the high holy days.

Torah Tots. Jewish families should definitely bookmark Torah Tots as it is loaded with free printable Jewish activities for kids, games, lessons, crafts, recipes, coloring pages, cut and paste, puzzles and online activities for kids. This link takes you to the free printable Yom Kippur activities for kids pages. And don't let the name Torah "tots" throw you. Older kids will be better able to use the site because many of the activities require reading skills. Please be sure to visit all the holiday and holy day activities for kids on Torah Tots. Explore Jewish holidays, traditions, symbols and general knowledge of the Torah.

You can find a weekly Parsha activities for kids. The Parsha is a scripture text from the Torah, explained for kids. There is a link to the Midrash Maven (Midrash is a commentary on parts of the Torah). Parsha is similar to a Christian sermon or homily. Chabad has a gajillion free printable Hebrew activities for kids, including games, coloring pages, puzzles and lessons plans for holy days like the Day of Atonement. Help kids explore the Jewish Day of Atonement. These activities are geared for children over seven or eight.

A Kids' Heart has fifteen free printable Day of Atonement activities for kids, geared for younger children. There are free printable Yom Kippur coloring pages, word search, fill-in-the-blank and some cut and paste diorama activities. This site is useful for Jewish and non-Jewish people who wish to learn more about the Hebrew faith.

Teacher Vision is a subscriber site. You can access some free printable activities for kids without a subscription. This link will take you to a lesson page about Yom Kippur. This activity is geared toward non-Jews, to help them understand the Hebrew faith. Jewish Homeschool Resources has tons offree printable Hebrew holy day activities for kids, including Yom Kippur. First School Resources has more free printable Yom Kippur and Day of Atonement activities for kids.

For more information on Judaism, Jewish holidays, the Jewish calendar and all things Hebrew, visitJew FAQ otherwise known as Judaism 101. For more world holiday activities visit Free Printable Holiday and Free Printable Lesson Plans. Gmar Hatima Tova.

Free Printable Apple, Plant Science

Autumn in Michigan means apples. Apples are a common theme for preschool and elementary school students. Teachers and homeschoolers, are you teaching a fall apple unit? Here's a sweet treat for you: 166 pages of free printable apple themed worksheets and lesson plans.

Northville Cider Mill in Northville, Michigan offers a free printable apple-themed activities booklet, There are printable coloring pages, worksheets, puzzles, games, word searches and crossword puzzles on apples. There are apple-themed cross-curricular science experiments, social studies connections, economics lessons, Michigan history activities, apple math problems and more.

Each lesson has a printable student copy and teacher answer key. Use this book for all ages from preschool to grade 8. It can easily be used with special education students, too.

Now scoot over to A to Z Teacher Stuff for more links to dozens of free printable apple lesson plans, crafts, mini booklets, games and worksheets. Most are geared to ages pre-K to grades 4.

Kinderplans has cute free printable apple themed reading and phonics lessons for preschool and kindergarten. There are other printables based on apples, too. Print apple math lessons on counting, addition and subtraction. Print reading activities and games for emergent and reluctant readers. Special education will love the bright, cheery apple activities geared no-fail fun.

For more worksheets and printables visit my blogs Free Printable Lesson Plans, DIY Homeschooland Free Lesson Plans 4U.

Free Printable September 11 Lesson Plans, Memorial Activities

As Britain commemorates Guy Fawkes Day on November 5, Americans "remember, remember the 11th of September." On the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, how can we commemorate in a proactive way? A nonprofit called My Good Deed, suggests making it a National Day of Service and Remembrance reports the International Business Times. But how do you teach children why September 11 is so important? How do you explain what happened to the World Trade Center, Flight 93 and Pentagon? How can you help them understand war, violence and terrorism? Here are free printable September 11 lesson plans to help.

Scholastic has a free printable September 11 unit filled with activities, titled "9/11/2011: The Day that Changed America." There are dozens of social studies, history, government and civics lessons. Resources include primary sources (original pictures and documents), timelines, graphs, charts and maps. There are critical thinking and writing prompts, memorial activities, movie and book connections. There are September 11 units for preschool up to grade 8.

Education World presents a compendium of 9/11 printables and activities for teaching about tragedy, terrorism and tolerance. There are resources on Islam and its perspective, too. Lessons cover not just the who, what, when, where and how of the September 11 attacks, but the why, as well. Children learn why the U.S. was attacked, what we can do about it, what's been done, and why we must not forget.

PBS has a collection of free September 11 lesson plans geared primarily at students in middle school and high school. These lessons explore 9/11 in the larger world context and how the September 11 attacks affected the world. ABC Teach has a package of printable 9/11 lesson plans for younger children. There are coloring pages, writing prompts and vocabulary puzzles. These activities help kids who didn't experience September 11 understand why it's so important to those who did. Children see destruction and violence on television and video games all the time. 9/11 can seem unreal.

9/11 Memorial is museum, archive, repository and exhibition built at the site of the World Trade Center. This website offers virtual tours, photo walls, and features twin pools at ground zero, inscribed with the names of the victims. If children can't visit the 9/11 Memorial, a virtual classroom tour will help them explore. Here is the page with free printable 9/11 Memorial lesson plans .

Kids might make a memorial drawing quilt. Ask children to draw or color a picture reflecting the 9/11 attacks. Don't set boundaries. Let kids express feelings in any way that they need to. Collect the drawings and tape them together to form a September 11 "quilt." The quilt may be a thank-you for National Guard or public safety officers, too. Send it to a victim, rescue worker or veteran memorial group or display in your school.

Coloring may seem like a superficial way to commemorate a disaster. For children, it's therapeutic. It's like journaling for an adult. Drawing helps children access and express emotions. When a child hears sad news, drawing is a first response because he hasn't learned how to share feelings in words, written or spoken, Children show empathy for suffering people, making cards for them. There is so little anyone, let alone a kid, can do about tragedy. Simple acts of kindness, like drawing a picture, help heal.

Free Printable Labor Day Coloring Pages and Lesson Plans

Spring is a poignant time in labor history. March 25, 1911 remembers 146 workers, mostly women, lost in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. April 16 mourns Ireland's Easter Rising of slain Feinians. April 28 marks Workers' Memorial Day, on which the organized labor movement pays tribute to the fallen in workplace accidents or in organized labor struggles. May 1 is May Day, honoring International Workers' Day. May 4 commemorates casualties at Chicago's Haymarket riot at a 1886 labor rally. May 19, 1920 is a day when the organized labor movement grieves the Matewan and Mingo County massacre of coal miners. On May 26, 1937 those who would from unions were assaulted at Ford's River Rouge plant "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit.

Organized labor history is taught as part of American history, but there is no American (or world) history without labor history. Unions, collective bargaining--the fight for workers' rights impact every industry, occupation and person. Teachers and homeschoolers, you can educate students about unions with these free printable May Day and labor history lesson plans. These links include websites, activities, worksheets, movies and books on the organized labor movement.

The American Labor Studies Center offers a gamut of free printable organized labor movement lesson plans. It covers history, events, strikes, lockouts, workplace injuries, child labor, working conditions, collective bargaining, 8-hour workday, sweatshops, slavery, organizing, indentured servitude, socialism and labor, women's rights, African American labor issues, minority discrimination concerns, ULP (unfair labor practices). Lessons cover the Triangle fire (the worst workplace accident in history), West Virginia labor, Pullman Strike (1894), Lawrence Textile Strike (1913), Lowell Strike, Paterson Silk Strike, agriculture strikes and other events. Get free printable union labor worksheets, fill-ins, puzzles and study guides. There are links to films and books.

Modern Heroes of the American Labor Movement explores famous labor leaders: Noam Chomsky, Joe Hill, "Big Bill" Haywood, Pete Seeger, Jimmy Hoffa, Caesar Chavez, the Wisconsin 14 and others from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), AFL-CIO, Teamsters and more. Here's another list ofbiographies of union organizers. This site has biographies of women labor leaders including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and more. To use in lessons, print the list of names on one side and short bios on the other side (mixed up). Students match person with details. Print photos and pin to a map at places they are associated with. Or make a time line along the wall. Plot images in history.

The National Endowment for the Humanities offers two companion lessons in its series The Industrial Age in America. "Sweatshops, Steel Mills and Factories" and "Robber Barons and Captains of Industry" define the problems faced by workers in labor history and the reasons for the organized labor movement. Use the worksheets and activities with middle school and high school students.

The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University in Detroit maintains the largest organized labor history archive in the U.S. It has an impressive collection of images in physical exhibits and digital archives on The Labor Movement and Organizations. It also maintains a labor history document base. The library is named for the leaders of UAW (United Auto Workers) and CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) unions Walter Reuther who was one of several injured at Ford's Rouge factory "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit.

The United Farm Workers is the union begun by Cesar Chavez that tends to itinerant and agricultural labor issues. Along with labor movement, the UFW educates people about food safety, immigration, deportation, earth and green initiatives, pesticides and more. An important piece is the youth activism page. UFW seeks to take union and agricultural awareness beyond the classroom walls and into real life.

The Wobblies is a documentary about the IWW (the Industrial Workers of the World). The IWW is a world-wide union that seeks to organize all workers regardless of occupation. This authoritative video is engaging and covers a broad labor perspective. It helps students understand the differences between business, trade and collective unions. The IWW honors May Day as the real Labor Day.

In honor of May Day, here's a quote from the Albert Shanker Institute. "Imagine opening a high school U.S. history textbook and finding no mention of-or at most a passing sentence about-Valley Forge, the Missouri Compromise...Benjamin Franklin, Lewis and Clark. Imagine if these key events and people just disappeared as if they'd never existed...That is what has happened in history textbooks when it comes to labor's part in the American story." Use these lesson plans to keep the May Day stories and message alive.

Free Printable Patriotic Activities for Memorial Day

Several US national holidays center on patriotic events in American history--Memorial Day, Flag Day, 4th of July, Columbus Day, Veterans Day and Presidents Day. So here are free printable patriotic crafts and red white and blue crafts and art projects. These free printable activities might easily be used as lesson plans for school or homeschool to teach American history, government, civics, social studies, geography, current events, US history and other similar classes.

All Crafts has a blowout of red white and blue crafts projects to use for major US national holidays. Use these free printable patriotic crafts for US national holidays like Memorial Day and 4th of July but also for lesson plans on Presidents Day, Constitution Day or even Election Day. Pecuniarities has a cute free printable toy soldiers crafts, perfect for Presidents Day and military holidays and US national holidays. Print toy soldiers, cut them out, wrap around toilet paper tubes and glue. Free Kids Crafts offers free printable patriotic crafts, games, activities, puzzles, paper dolls and paper airplanes. Use these for American history or Presidents Day activities!

The Toymaker has free printable patriotic crafts, red white and blue crafts and American history art projects. Making Friends always has lots of great crafts, including free printable patriotic crafts and RWB activities. You'll like the games,puzzles and mazes for US national holidays too. Teacher Vision has a bunch of educational free printable patriotic crafts. DL-TK has a loads of free printable red white and blue crafts and art projects and patriotic crafts for American history and US national holidays. Activity Village has free printable red white and blue crafts and art projects for all US national holidays. Here's the Presidents Day page but check the side menu and home page for season by season holiday activities.

Free Printable Cinco De Mayo Lesson Activities

Cinco de Mayo, or Fifth of May, celebrates the victory of the smaller Mexican army over the mighty French juggernaut, in the Battle of Puebla, 1862. Cinco de Mayo is not the Mexican Independence Day, but many Latino Americans celebrate it. Here are free printable Cinco de Mayo coloring pagesand Mexican crafts

Apples 4 the Teacher offers free printable Cinco de Mayo coloring activities, games, crafts, puzzles and lesson plans to explore Mexican geography, culture and history.

Preschool Coloring Book has free printable Cinco de Mayo coloring pages of a sombrero, pinata, serape and fiesta.

Kiddy House provides free Cinco de Mayo coloring printables linked on from the Cinco de Mayo homepage. Color Mexican children in traditional costumes, maps and flag of Mexico, plus fiesta coloring pages.

Surf Net Kids has free printable Cinco de Mayo coloring pages, including some whimsical chili peppers in sombreros as well as a Mexican couple in ceremonial and traditional dress.

DL-TK is your one-stop source for free printable Cinco de Mayo crafts, coloring pages, games, Mexican history and social studies lessons, booklets and more. Create a complete classroom or homeschool unit to explore Cinco de Mayo and Mexican history and traditions. Here's the page onMexico coloring pages, lesson plans and activities. Color some for Cinco de Mayo greeting cards and party decorations.

About Family Crafts lists a gajillion free Cinco de Mayo printables including Mexican games, crafts, puzzles, greeting cards and more.

Free Printable Famous Buildings Around the World Coloring Pages for Social Studies

The most interesting social studies activities are those that explore geography and cultures around the world. Here are free printable coloring pages of world maps, country maps, famous landmarks, building and points of interest from countries around the world. Students will love taking around the world tours of different countries with these interactive, hands on social studies lessons. Then keep reading for free printable 3D paper models of landmarks and famous buildings.

Our trip around the world begins at Activity Village has free printable coloring pages of famous landmarks, famous buildings of the world and sights to see in different countries. In London, England, get free printable coloring pages of the London Eye, London Bridge, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard, a Beefeater, Big Ben, a London cab a double-decker bus and more. Then go around the world to nearby Scotland and Wales.

Your free printable famous buildings around the world tour at Activity Village continues to France, Brazil, Egypt, India, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and the United States. Print the Loch Ness monster, Eiffel Tower, Table Mountain, Statue of Liberty, Christ the Redeemer statue (to name a few famous landmarks). Print world maps showing national products, landmarks and sights to see.

Now for free printable 3D models of famous buildings to print--hang onto your hats because Paper Toys has free printable 3D paper models galore. Then when you thought you'd seen all the cool 3D paper models of buildings you could want, hit this site for more free printable 3D paper models of famous buildings. Get free printable paper models of castles, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a haunted house, a medieval manor house, plus really cool 3D paper models of artifacts, vehicles, ancient wonders of the world and even Jimi Hendrix's guitar and Guy Fawkes mask! There are masks, race cars, pyramids, ships, paper airplanes, paper dolls and more.

Free Printable Black History Month Lesson Plans

Black History Month is observed in February, in the US. Schools will usually offer special programming, content or lessons on issues and events that are significant to African Americans. Students explore biographies and contributions of famous black Americans. They read books written specifically about or by African Americans. 

I received emails recently for free Black History Month teaching materials. Shmoop is an education site I'm subscribed to. It offers an array of free printable lesson plans, study guides, activities and worksheets geared toward upper elementary to high school. There are 25-plus pieces of content available free on Black History Month. Teachers and homeschoolers you can access these, by registering and use in your classrooms. Students and parents, there are study aids for you too. 

I couldn't find one page with all the offerings. So I linked to the American History 1850-2014 page. From there you can navigate to the 1450-1849 pages, plus a photo archive and AP history helps. Here's the link to the free literature lessons page. Look there for reader guides on books of note in black history. Here are some lesson subjects you'll find: 

Slavery
Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance
Jim Crow
Civil Rights 

Desegregation

“Black Power” 

Famous court cases impacting slavery, integration and civil rights

Race issues in US wars: Revolutionary, Civil, WWII
KKK
Civil War
Abolition

Antebellum America

Reconstruction

FDR’s New Deal

Race in music history: jazz, blues, rock & roll
Desegregation in schools, sports
Boycotts

There are teaching guides for poetry and books of Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Phillis Wheatley, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain and Harper Lee. 

Scholastic offers an extensive collection of Black History Month lessons on a spectrum of subjects. There are online activities, free printable worksheets, simulation games, book lists, study guides. Scholastic provides materials for students Pre-K to grade 8. I linked to the complete list and you can refine your search by grade and activity type. 

Use these to help students of all backgrounds explore these integral parts of US history. We took these images at Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. We sat on the actual bus Rosa Parks rode. We looked at the "whites only" drinking fountain and the eerie Ku Klux Klan robe. Even though we're all history buffs, it gave us a new perspective, from the inside out, on black history. Whenever possible, as educators, we need to provide kids with living history experiences like this so they can learn in a multisensory way. 

Free Printable Early American History Lesson Plans -

I'm a teacher, homeschool veteran and American history reenactor. I teach a 1700s-era dame school(here's a model one at Thursley in Surrey, England) at our local history museum "Feast of the Strawberry Moon" encampment. Here are free printable hands-on early American history lessons and historical crafts and free printable colonial America lesson plans.

Teach about school history. Explain that education wasn't compulsory in the U.S. colonies till 1852 and then only in Massachusetts. Kids might be taught in "dame schools." Then only basics. Women weren't deemed capable of teaching boys. They taught handicrafts, reading, writing and ciphering. Higher education was taught by men to families who could afford it. Here are free printable history lessons and historical crafts from Kidipede linked to the main page for the whole collection.

Reading in Colonial America. In 1647, reading, writing and Bible was mandated, under the Old Deluder Satan Act. The New England Primer was used starting in 1760. MacGuffey Readers came out in 1836. But that was the colonies. The Michigan territory was settled by Catholic French. Education came from missionaries, like Quebecois Ursuline nuns under Marie del Incarnation. Catholic or Protestant, instruction was religious and moral. Here are free printable selections from the New England Primer. Teach kids the famous alphabet poem beginning: "In Adam's fall." Here are morecolonial early American history lessons.

Colonial America ladder school. Teachers grouped students by age and ability. In math, the first row, the youngest, worked on counting. The next row, basic addition. The next, subtraction and so on. Spelling, reading, and handwriting would be taught this way, too. D emonstrate this with students. If students are agemates, assign some to play older kids and some younger. Arrange seats or benches in rows (ladders). Here are sample free printable early American history lessons like those teachers would have used.

Make homemade books. Vellum was a costly paper-like material made from animal membrane. This could be scraped down and reused. Few could afford it. But they would have saved and reused everything. Teach kids colonial America frugality. Make books from paper grocery bags (similar to parchment or butcher paper). Sew pages by punching holes and weaving with pieces of twine, rope, yarn or leather cording. Have students write the New England Prime Bible poem and illustrate. Here are other free printable colonial early American history lessons and historical crafts.

Hands-on math games: Give children pebbles for counting. Kids transfer one pebble from hand to hand as they count. Demonstrate simple operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I've used beans, but tell kids these were food stuffs and wouldn't have been wasted. Shells, feathers, sticks would likely have been used.

Writing in early American history. Make slate pencils. Children in early American history used slates and a stylus made of rocks. Gather rocks. Scratch on pieces of rock tile. Ask local rock or tile dealers for samples. See which kinds write best. Make quill and ink. Cut the end off the feather at an angle. Heat in flame to make a nib. Ink would have been too expensive. Only scholars, professors, scribes (professional letter writers) and maybe officials used it. Make ink from berry juice or by soaking walnuts, but remind students food would not have been wasted on ink.

Make stick pencils. Kids and teachers used what was on-hand, probably writing in sand or dirt or with sticks. Make pencils burning the ends of sticks. These colonial America activities give children cultural immersion in time periods, that goes was beyond the textbooks.

Free Printable Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lesson Plans and Activities

With the discussion of placing an image of Harriet Tubman on the U.S. $20 bill, attention focuses on black history. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January and February is Black History Month. In early summer, the United States focuses on American history with its observance of Memorial Day, Flag Day and 4th of July. But really, every day should honor such important contributions of American people and every month Americans should celebrate U.S. history.

Here are free printable American history lesson plans on the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. MLK Jr was born on January 15, 1929. MLK and was shot by an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968. Use these free printable lesson plans to explore this legendary hero in the classroom, homeschool, scout troops 4H and social groups.

Nobel Prize has free printable MLK Jr and black history lesson plans, As the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Martin Luther King Jr. is featured on this website with a comprehensive bibliography of resources. About has an entire unit of free printable Martin Luther King Jr activities, including a 5-page activity booklet Happy Birthday MLK by Jean Marzollo. It covers the life and work of Dr. King. The lessons guide students through readings, discussions, response activities and higher order thinking skills questions.

Mr.Donn has free printable American history lesson plans, created by a teacher for teachers. There are close to 30 links for free printable lessons, posters, coloring pages, worksheets, fill-in-the-blanks, puzzles, coloring pages, literature study guides and activities based on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Some black history favorites include a Unity Hand Wreath cut and paste craft, a Box of Crayonscoloring craft and Breaking Color Barriers (a science object lesson for children)

ABC Teach has 16 free printable lesson plans focused on world peace and unity. There are crafts, writing prompts, posters, games, coloring pages, word search, worksheets, reading activities, acrostic forms, poetry frames and much more. After all, peace, unity and brotherhood was what Dr. King was all about.

ABC Teach MLK has free printable writing prompts, worksheets, lessons, games and activities about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and his speeches, including "I have a Dream". There are Black History Month activities. In conclusion is a quote from that famous speech made by Dr. King, made on August 28, 1963 at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Free Printable Educational Crossword Puzzles

Looking for free printable crossword puzzles and word games for classroom lesson plans, homeschool and school homework. Here are thousands of free printable educational games, crossword puzzles, word games and word search puzzles. Teacher Vision has many free printable crossword puzzles on all sorts of subjects. You can print crossword puzzles for science, literature, social studies, math, fine arts, history, geography and other lessons. Education world has free printable math crossword puzzles.

Student Handouts is an awesome website with many educational games, puzzles school and homeschool printables galore. Here are free printable word search puzzles and word games for history, holidays, final exams content, art and other school subjects. There are also blank puzzle grids to make your own word search games based on specific content you're teaching. Speaking of making your own crossword puzzles, Discovery World offers free puzzle generator software for teachers and home educators. Education is mostly a pay website, but there are plenty of sample educational games and free printable word games and puzzles. Houghton-Mifflin Eduplace has free printable science crossword puzzles that correlate to textbooks.

TSL books offers a bunch of free printable word search puzzles, educational games and activities on different themes and content. Enchanted Learning has countless free printable puzzles on an assortment of subjects for grades preschool to upper elementary. Word games include crossword, word search, fill in the blank, cloze and a nifty kind you don't see very often--rebus. Rebus puzzles use pictures in place of words, like hieroglyphics. Rebus puzzles are educational games and excellent for teaching emergent reading skills.

Free Prinntable Kwanzaa Lesson Plans and Activities

Habari Gani? This is the Swahili greeting given at Kwanzaa, the least known but fastest-growing of the winter holidays. When you greet someone with Habari Gani? you are asking "what's the news?" Kwanzaa--meaning "first fruits of the harvest"--celebrates family, community and culture. Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days, from December 26 to January 1. In the seven days there are seven principles that people aim for. Here's the list in Swahili and English, plus free printable Kwanzaa lesson plans, Swahili worksheets, African crafts and games.

The seven Kwanzaa principles are--"umoja" meaning unity, "kujichagulia" or self-determination, knowing one's self. Ujima means working collectively and being socially responsible. "ugamaa" refers to cooperative economics and bartering for the common good (instead of selfishly undercutting for one's personal gain). "Nia" is sense of purpose and "kuumba" is creativity. Over it all is "imani" or trust and faith.

The symbols of Kwanzaa include seven candles or "mishumaa" in Swahili. There are 3 red, 3 green, 1 black cancle which together represent Kwanzaa's seven principles. These are placed in a kinara, a candle holder, representing a stalk of corn. This ceremonial holder shows people grow in families from the earth. The Kwanzaa candle holders look similar to a Jewish menorah.. The "mkeka" is a straw place mat, recalling tradition and history. Placed on the mat are a variety of fruit, symbolizing harvest called the mazao. The "vibunzi" is an ear of corn. One is given to each child, celebrating the child's potential (what they can become). The "kikombe cha umoja" is a cup of unity, which recalls the ancestors.

Children are given simple but significant gifts at Kwanzaa. The purpose is to develop creativity, potential and success. Gifts, in Swahili are called "zawadi." Use these free educational resources to explore Kwanzaa. Habari Gani? Offers a wonderful history, perspective and collections of free printable Kwanzaa activities and African crafts. About Homeschooling has a large selection of free printable Kwanzaa lesson plans, games, Swahili puzzles and African crafts Kwanzaa.

ABC Teach has free printable Kwanzaa lesson plans for elementary subjects: math, reading, social studies, history and writing. Many are inter-disciplinary or cross-cultural. There are links for crafts, vocabulary, and more. Mr. Donn has developed a large collection of free printable Kwanzaa lesson plans Swahili worksheets and African crafts all focused upon Black or African American history. He has made many free printable lessons. Making Friends has free printable Kwanzaa lesson plans, crafts and African crafts.

Free Printable Little House on the Prairie Lesson Plans

If you were a girl growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, you read and loved Laura Ingalls Wilder and her  Little House on the Prairie book series. Maybe you were lucky to have the handsome boxed set of Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Then you loved the Little House on the Prairie TV series when it came out. Long before "Pioneer Woman" and settler survival type reality TV shows, there was Laura Ingalls Wilder and her stories about life in the 1880s midwest.

But teachers and homeschool parents, you don't have to wait for that film. Now you can bring early American history into your social studies lessons with free printable Laura Ingalls Wilder book activities. Get free printable American history lesson plans book activities from the seven books in the series. The series begins with "Little House in the Big Woods" when Laura is five and was written over a period from 1932-1943. But going in chronological order "Farmer Boy"comes first. It's based on childhood memories of Laura's father Charles Ingalls. Next comes "Little House on the Prairie", "On the Banks of Plum Creek", "By the Shores of Silver Lake", "The Long Winter", "Little Town on the Prairie" and "These Happy Golden Years." "The First Four Years" (stories from Laura's early married life). didn't come out till 1971 and I clearly remember the big deal that was, and later when "West from Home" (not part of the original series) came out in 1974.

The publication of these books sparked renewed interest in early American history and pioneer lore. My mother first read Little House in the Big Woods to me when I was near Laura's age in the story. Laura Ingalls Wilder had a gift for story-telling to match her fascinating life. I purchased the rest of the series, one by one and read them. I later read the Little House on the Prairie books to my own children and used them in our homeschool. The Little House books make perfect American history activities and social studies lesson plans on the life of American pioneers.

The website Laura's Prairie House calls itself the Definitive Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie. The site has dozens of free printable American history and book activities, crafts, recipes and coloring pages. These books help social studies teachers explore the difference between American pioneers and settlers. Pioneers were trail blazers who built new towns and settlements. Settlers moved into these areas and settled them. Laura Ingalls Wilder's family, both the her parents Charles and Caroline Ingalls and her husband Almanzo Wilder were settlers and pioneers. They brought customs and traditions with them from the New England towns they lived in and they formed many new traditions based on the areas they settled.

There are free printable Little House in the Big Woods lesson plans, crafts, games and book activities. There are free printable Little House on the Prairie book activities and free On the Banks of Plum Creek printables. There are recipes for maple candy, johnny cake, parched corn, cornbread, vinegar pie, horehound candy and other foods Laura features in her books. Other sites feature moreLittle House free printables You can print American history crafts, recipes, sheet music and lyrics from songs as well as complete episode guides and links from the Little House on the Prairie television show. Laura's Prairie Home features comprehensive biographical data on the Ingalls and Wilder families and links to historic locations and preservation sites where they lives.