Although it is not officially spring yet, March is a great time to celebrate, and with these March holiday activities, you’ll have plenty of ideas for this very special month!
Although not the flashiest of months, March offers a lot to celebrate in the school calendar.
If your school celebrates Spring Break, usually it will fall during March. Spring Break is both a halfway point for the spring semester, providing a much-needed break for teachers and students alike, but it also is representative of the ‘beginning of the end.’
After Spring Break, many teachers will not see another break in their schedule until Memorial Day, and depending on when your school year ends, this could be the last day of school.
This gives us even more to celebrate!
To keep this month fresh and to bring some order and structure to the month, consider planning some in-class celebrations of some of these March holidays!
There are plenty of March holiday activities to choose from, some for popular holidays and some for more obscure holidays. Pick a few or do them all.
If you love celebrating holidays (especially obscure ones) with your students, I strongly recommend incorporating the Holiday of the Day Writing Prompts into your daily work. These work great as bell ringers or transition assignments as you return from lunch or a special.
We have Holiday of the Day Writing Prompts for just the month of March (or any other month you might want them for), or you can save some money and time and get the full-year bundle! We even have writing prompts for the summer if you do summer school or if your school has a year-round schedule!
Now, let’s dive into some of our favorite activities for celebrating the March holidays!
March Holiday Activities and Ideas
Read Across America Day (March 2nd)
Read Across America Day is a perfect day to start a new reading initiative in your school. Whether that is a read-a-thon to raise some money or just a month-long class goal to read a certain number of minutes or pages, this is a great day to kick off your reading.
You may also plan to have some guest readers come in throughout the day. You can have parents or other people sign up to come in and read to students.
If you have upper elementary students, use Read Across America Day to partner up with a Kindergarten or First Grade class and have your students read together.
Read Across America Day is a great day to start something new, and some of these new initiatives you start may end up being something that you continue to incorporate into your class for the rest of the year!
National Grammar Day (March 4th)
National Grammar Day is a great day to celebrate your students’ grammar knowledge with some fun grammar games.
Start with a full-class game like this Grammar Game Show, but do it up special with sound effects and lighting. Read more about how you can level up your game shows in this blog post!
Once you’ve played the Grammar Game Show, continue the fun with even more grammar games during centers or stations!
National Oreo Cookie Day (March 6th)
If you are looking for some tasty March holiday activities, then you’re in the right place!
National Oreo Cookie Day is a great day to do a little hypothesizing about the different tastes of different Oreos. Then, you can test your hypothesis with a little taste test.
You can also poll other students in the school about their favorite kinds of Oreos and use the data to do some activities or put together reports.
International Day of Awesomeness (March 10th)
What a great day to celebrate!
On the International Day of Awesomeness, have students create “Awesome Me” posters and presentations to share with the class.
Encourage students to speak positively about themselves and proudly display their talents.
Give them time to reflect on their talents, interests, and qualities and discuss what kinds of things they think make a person awesome.
This is also a great day to talk about how people have different strengths and talents and how people with different strengths can work together to solve problems in unique ways!
Pi Day (March 14th)
It’s only natural to have a mathematical approach to Pi Day or March 14th.
This is a great day to explore the concept of pi and its significance in mathematics. Then, you can start to have a little fun by using real pies as part of your teaching for the day.
Whether you are comparing and contrasting pie recipes or using pie slices to demonstrate fractions, there is a whole lot of sweet fun to be had on Pi Day!
St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th)
St. Patrick’s Day can be so much fun in upper elementary. You can do Irish-themed arts and crafts, learn about Irish folklore, or even research the history and cultural traditions associated with St. Patrick’s Day.
I also love to incorporate some St. Patrick’s Day-themed activities that work on classroom skills.
We have some fantastic reading passages in our Close Reads with Mystery Picture set themed around St. Patrick’s Day. The passages include a fictional passage about two friends out searching for a leprechaun, as well as two nonfiction passages. The first nonfiction passage is about St. Patrick’s Day traditions and beliefs, and the second is about the history of St. Patrick’s Day.
In addition to the Close Reads, we also have a St. Patrick’s Day Game Show that you can use with students for ELA review!
World Poetry Day (March 21st)
Celebrate poetry by reading and creating poetry with your students today. Teach students a type of poetry and see what they can create.
You can also explore song lyrics as another way that poetry has gained popularity. Music is often more easy to access for students than poetry, and modern musicians are helpful in making poetry ‘cool’ for kids.
Poetry is brought to life with interesting word choice, rhymes or tempo, tone, and message. Do a word choice challenge with your students. Present them with a simple poem and ask them to play around with the word choice to create a stronger version of the poem. At the end of the activity, students will present their final products, and the class will vote on their favorite.
National Puppy Day (March 23rd)
Personally, I love the idea of just plastering your classroom walls with pictures of puppies for National Puppy Day. Still, we’ve got a few additional ideas for you to consider on this super cute March holiday.
To begin the day, consider doing some research. Ask students to research different kinds of dogs and create informative posters or brochures. Then, use that content to do other activities like a poll.
National Puppy Day makes for another good data day. Put up pictures of puppies somewhere where students can easily access them (or use your students’ posters or brochures), and ask students to vote on their favorite kind of puppy, then ask students to poll other classes. Use the data to create a presentation on which types of puppies are the school’s favorite.
Note: On some of these holidays, like National Puppy Day, you can do similar activities to others that you’ve already done. Simply making puppies the theme of the day is enough to make it special for students.
National Make Up Your Own Holiday Day (March 26th)
You can go a lot of different ways with this particular holiday, and all of them could be super creative!
Here’s one of my favorite ideas!
On National Make Up Your Own Holiday Day, challenge students to invent their own holidays and create presentations explaining the holiday’s purpose, traditions, and celebrations. They can even go so far as to pick colors for the holiday.
Then, create art projects to show what that holiday may ‘look’ like. This can include the kinds of decorations that might be common on that day, the words that may be used, or even drawings of what people might wear.
Once your students are done creating, ask them to present their holidays, and as a class, you can vote to select the most creative or most meaningful student-created holiday to celebrate together.
National Crayon Day (March 31st)
National Crayon Day is a great day to get out the big tote of Crayons and give students some time to create.
You may also decide to do some special crayon-melting art. This could be making new crayons from old pieces, using a hair dryer to make drip art or any other ideas you find that you want to try.
You can also incorporate the Crayon Close Read Freebie below! This free resource will give you passages you can use at the beginning of the day to kick off National Crayon Day and set the students up for a full day of celebration!
Easter (Sometimes in March)
Easter isn’t always in March, but when it is, it comes up very quickly after Spring Break, so you have to be ready with a plan.
We’ve discussed Easter resources many times on the blog, so to get some good ideas for celebrating Easter, take a closer look at the posts below!
Mardi Gras (Sometimes in March)
Sometimes, Mardi Gras is in February, and sometimes, it is in March, so it is a good idea to have some quick Mardi Gras activities on hand to make the day special. Having no-prep activities ready to go for this holiday allows you to insert them into the schedule no matter what month it falls in.
We have two ready-to-use activites specifically designed to learn more about Mardi Gras while also working on some core skills.
The first are these Mardi Gras Close Reads. These Close Reads include 3 passages written at 3 different reading levels. The first passage is a fictional passage about a family who attends a parade on Mardi Gras.
The second passage in our Mardi Gras Close Read Set is an informational passage about the history of the Mardi Gras parade, and the third passage is an information passage about the history of Mardi Gras.
In addition to the Close Reads, we also have a Mardi Gras Game Show that you can play with your whole class. This game show is great for a full-class activity or as a small group activity during centers or stations.
March Close Reads
Close Reads with Mystery Pictures are a great addition to your March schedule. These activities are already differentiated and are perfect for test prep (which is often a singular focus this time of year).
Our March Close Reads with Mystery Pictures include passages about basketball (to coincide with March Madness), Daylight Savings, and Katherine Johnson.
Hopefully, these March holiday activities and ideas will give you plenty to ponder this spring as you begin to plan for the ‘beginning of the end’ of the school year in March. The goal of these posts is to give you some fun ideas to incorporate while also sharing some activities and resources that will help to make your day a little easier.
For even more monthly ideas, check out the full-year list of monthly blog posts below!
- January Holiday Activities and Ideas
- February Holiday Activities and Ideas
- March Holiday Activities and Ideas (Current Post)
- April Holiday Activities and Idea
- May Holiday Activities and Ideas
- June Holiday Activities and Ideas
- July Holiday Activities and Ideas
- August Holiday Activities and Ideas
- September Holiday Activities and Ideas
- October Holiday Activities and Ideas
- November Holiday Activities and Ideas
- December Holiday Activities and Ideas
