Holiday Resources
General | Christmas / Winter| Grandparent's Day | Halloween | Kwanzaa | Martin Luther King, Jr. Day | Memorial Day | Thanksgiving | Veteran's Day | "Taps"
General:
- ARC Calendar: Heritage Months, Holidays, and Awareness Days
- Primary source materials (including sound clips) organized by month in a calendar.
- History of the Holidays
- Videos and information on various well-known and not so well-known holidays!
- Holidays
- A listing of links for a variety of holidays (some better known than others).
- Holidays on the Net
- Listing of holidays, information, history, current daily holiday, activities, and more.
- Looking Into Holidays Past Through Primary Sources
- Help students analyze primary sources they see, hear, or read, using seasonal holiday-themed resources from the Library of Congress.
- Teaching With Historic Places
- Features places relevant in the past and in the current time (i.e. Heritage months). Includes lesson plans for teaching about the sites included.
Christmas / Winter :
- Christmas 'Round the World
- Holiday customs listed by country.
- Christmas Around The World
- How countries around the world celebrate Christmas.
- Christmas Around the World:? a Christmas Play
- A musical play about Christmas.
- Christmas Traditions Around the World
- Links to world holiday traditions, including songs and recipes. (Does play continuous music at the time the page loads.)
- Holidays From Around The World
- Links to information on holiday celebrations, listed by country.
Grandparent's Day:
- Grandparents Day Activity Kit
- Activities and ideas for Grandparents' Day.
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Halloween:
- Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows
- The origins and traditions of Halloween. A selected bibliography on Halloween and related topics compiled by American Folklife Center staff is also included.
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Kwanzaa:
- Everything About Kwanzaa
- Information about the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Poem
- A poetry tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., including links to other resources.
- Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King!
- Lesson plans about Martin Luther King, Jr.
- King Center
- Information about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife Coretta Scott King, and the holiday. (starts with a LOUD Flash intro)
- Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site (National Park Service)
- National Park Service's Martin Luther King National Historic Site in Atlanta, which includes information on King's birthplace and childhood home and the Ebenezer Baptist Church Museum.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Lesson plans and activities related to Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day Activities and Resources for Kids
- Activities, quizzes, and other items related to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Memorial Day:
- Memory Shall Be Ours: Celebrating Memorial Day
- Lesson plans and activities for celebrating and remembering Memorial Day.
Thanksgiving:
- Creating a Colony in the New Land
- Resources relating to the Pilgrims and creating a colony.
- First Thanksgiving
- Information, pictures and resources to teach about the 1621 Harvest Festival.
- First Thanksgiving - You Are The Historian
- An online exploration of the first Thanksgiving celebration, using tools that historians use.
- Learn at Plimoth Plantation
- Information, historical artifacts, and activites related to Plimoth Plantation and the first Thanksgiving.
- Mayflower Compact
- A copy of the text from the Mayflower Compact.
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Veteran's Day:
- Experiencing War: Buffalo Soldiers, the 92nd in Italy (Stories from the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress)
- Told through oral history interviews, memoirs, diaries, and correspondence, these stories are not a formal history of war, but a treasure trove of individual feelings and personal recollections.
- What Is Veteran's Day? (Lesson Plan)
- A lesson plan explaining why we celebrate Veteran's Day.
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"Taps":
- History of Taps - Arlington National Cemetery
- The history, music, and words of the song "Taps" with pictures from Arlington National Cemetery.
- Taps Bugle Exhibit- Arlington National Cemetery
- Information on an exhibit with the song "Taps" at the Arlington National Cemetery.
- Taps Information - .WAV file!!!
- Information about the song "Taps" - including sound files.
Last updated by Ms. Rose on January 7, 2009.
Disclaimer: Clicking on the above links may take you to a site outside of what I have created. At the time of posting, these links were reviewed for appropriate material. However, they may have changed since they were last reviewed. Due to this, I make no guarantees for the content of these sites and recommend that parents and teachers be aware of what their students are doing on the Internet.